f 121 



The 

Adirondack 

Region 



HISTORY AND ADVENTURES 
OF EARLY TIMES 



The 

Adirondack 

Region 



History and Adventures 
of Early Times 



By Richard Coughlin 



Piftnshed by Szirtwiy Phctr-Craft Company, tot* 
Watertowm N. Y. 






OCT 
§>CU624938 

Copyrighted 1921 by Richard Coughlin 



Hlie Adirondack Region 



IN SEVERAL characteristics the Adirondack Region 
of Northern New York preserves a similarity to the 
Great Wilderness described by early French, Dutch 
and English soldiers, missionaries and traders. Its 
rugged heights and broad expanses of forests and lakes 
still provide retreats for abundant game and fish, for 
which it was noted in early days of Indian warfare and 
white settlement. Vast tracts of virgin forest lands are 
owned by the State and these will provide perpetual 
shelter for wild life, while maintaining the steady flow 
of water in numerous streams and rivers having their 
sources within this great reservoir of nature. 

The barriers of mountains, woods and waters still 
divert much of the traffic between the St. Lawrence and 
Hudson valleys to the lower and more level lands of the 
east and west, as it did in early times of canoe and pack 
traders. Though the railroads and the State's system of 
highways are making all parts of this great summer 
playground easily accessible, yet the charm of primeval 
forest and mountain scenery will never be lost. The land 
and climate generally are not suitable to agriculture, ex- 
cept as a precarious venture, and while extensive tracts 
of land have been cleared by lumbermen and swept by 
fire, yet the forest renews itself within a generation if 
trees enough are left for natural seeding. Large lumber 
and paper companies have found that reforesting is now 
a direct economic advantage to themselves as well as a 



wise measure of interest in the welfare of future gen- 
erations. They are following the example set by the 
State's forestry officials. 

Like a strong bastion of an early fortification the Adi- 
rondack Region stood as a barrier between the Mohawk 
Iroquois Indians and their ancient enemies of the north, 
Algonquins of the lower St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. 
Throughout all the eastern forests of North America 
there was almost continual warfare, migrations and mas- 
sacres of Indian tribes and nations when the first white 
settlers and explorers came to find their own ideals of 
liberty, or to search out new wealth or new routes to 
China and India. To the east and west of the "Great 
Wilderness" of the Adirondacks had passed southward 
that slow and sullen retreat of the Iroquois nations from 
their homes along the St. Lawrence to final settlement 
in central New York. In the Champlain Valley on the 
east and the St. Lawrence Valley on the west were tem- 
porary sites of their stockaded villages and broad fields 
for cultivating corn, squashes and tobacco, now abandon- 
ed for two or three generations when Champlain made 
his remarkable journeys of exploration to the lake to 
which he gave his name in 1609, and to the country of 
the Hurons and Ontario Iroquois in 1615. 

SETTLEMENTS OF THREE NATIONS. 

Three nations of western Europe, — France, Holland 
and England — have claimed ownership of the Adirondack 
Region, and descendants of all three are represented in 
the citizenship of scattered hamlets within its boundaries 
as well as in the prosperous farm lands, towns and cities 
encircling the great forest reserve today. Within the 



space of a dozen years representatives of the three peo- 
ples made settlements on northern Atlantic shores that 
vitally affected the ownership of the Adirondacks, but not 
until one hundred and seventy-five years had passed was 
it determined that a new nation of free people should 
hold dominion over these mountains and forests. The 
French had made first attempts at settlement along the 
shores of "Acadia," as they called the lands of Nova 
Scotia and Maine, in 1604 and 1605, followed by the 
English Popham-Gilbert unsuccessful venture at settle- 
ment at the mouth of the Kennebec river in Maine in 
1607. Then came the London Company chartered by 
James the First of England to settle the first permanent 
English colony in Virginia in 1607, whose sufferings and 
privations were characteristic of all those early ventures 
to find better fortune or more freedom in America. The 
three settlements more intimately connected with Adiron- 
dack history were Champlain's colony at Quebec in 1608, 
the exploration of the Hudson River and landing of the 
Dutch on Manhattan Island under Henry Hudson in 
1609, and the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth on 
Cape Cod in December of 1620. 

When Jacques Cartier, the French mariner of St. 
Malo, first sailed up the St. Lawrence in 1535, after ex- 
ploring the mouth and adjacent islands in 1534, he landed 
at Quebec and entered into trade and conversation with 
Indians of the nearby forests. Cartier decided to ex- 
plore a little farther up the great river, in spite of pro- 
tests from the Indians who declared that enemy people 
lived in that river but a few days' journey away. At 
the island later named Montreal, Cartier found a differ- 
ent tribe or nation, in a stockaded village with long bark 



houses, speaking a different tongue. Hochelaga, the In- 
dians, caned their town. No attempt was made at settle- 
ment at Montreal, though Cartier passed the winter at 
Quebec, and twice in later years unsuccessfully attempted 
to found settlements near the latter place. French, Por- 
tuguese and English fishermen in succeeding decades 
took rich harvests of cod and herring from the waters 
about the coast of Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, or anchored for a while under the shores of 
Tadousac to trade for furs with the Montagnards of 
those northern forests. 

CHAMPLAIN'S DISCOVERY. 

Early tradition told of continual warfare between 
tribes of the lower St. Lawrence and the upper river, but 
it was not until the coming of Champlain with his French 
colonists in 1608 that the location of these veteran ene- 
mies was determined. This entrepid explorer, captain- 
general of the expedition and later governor of New 
France, journeyed up the river from his settlement at 
Quebec to the great island visited by Cartier seventy 
years earlier. There was no longer a stockade village of 
enemies, but only the poorer shelter of the northern Al- 
gonquin Indians. Champlain made friends of the tribes 
of the St. Lawrence, and determined to visit distant lands 
and waters described by them. In 1609 he set out from 
Quebec, left the St. Lawrence and sailed up a river which 
the Indians assured him would carry his craft safely to 
a great lake in the country of the "Yroquois." His sail 
craft could proceed no farther than the first falls of the 
Richelieu, whereupon Champlain made rather pertinent 
remarks concerning the veracity of his savage guides. 



He continued his journey, however, accompanied by two 
white soldiers, in canoes which the Indians paddled and 
carried around rapids or obstructions in the river. 

ANCIENT "YOROQUOIS" LANDS. 

When the broad expanse of the lake opened out before 
him Champlain was delighted with the prospect. The 
flotilla of canoes proceeded leisurely south along the 
shore of the lake, camps being made in the woods at 
night. The Algonquins told Champlain that this was the 
country of their enemies, and that the eastern shore of 
the lake had been inhabited within recent times by the 
"Yoroquois," as the open fields of former plantings bore 
evidence. Toward the southern end of the lake, in the 
narrow reaches, the Algonquins discovered a war party 
of their enemies, on the shore, and immediately a great 
chorus of imprecations and revilements were being hurled 
at each other. Champlain and his two white companions 
were hidden in the bottoms of canoes. When the war 
parties finally arrived at an understanding that the issue 
would be fought out on the next day the Algonquins 
landed and constructed a rough barricade of fallen trees, 
as did their enemies. This was the evening of July 29. 
1609. 

Champlain described the organization of the attack- 
ing parties. The chief warrior designated with sticks 
placed on the ground the position of each sub-chief and 
warrior, and the savages after studying carefully the 
arrangement of sticks, would practice "falling in" or 
breaking ranks. This practice was followed by many 
tribes of eastern Indians, and has been described often 
by later writers. 



Another custom rather disconcerting to Champlain's 
soldierly instincts was the failure of the Indians to post 
sentries at night as a guard against surprise by the 
enemy. The Indians would be sufficiently alert and 
keen-eyed during the daytime, with scouts out ahead or 
ranging the woods along the line of travel, but at night 
they all would lie down around the campfires and sleep 
until daybreak. As their enemies were probably doing 
likewise, they were content with a hasty barricade of 
trees and brush, unless awakened by wierd dreams in- 
duced by periodic overeating. To these dreams they 
gave great significance, and before the encounter between 
the two forces on the shore of the lake the Algonquins 
besought Champlain to tell them what he had dreamed 
during the night. His answers brought them comfort 
and assurance of victory. 

THE FIRST BATTLE. 

When the opposing forces stepped forth for battle in 
the forest next day, the Algonquins opened ranks and the 
white men advanced to the front with their arquebuesks, 
matches lighted ready to fire. The Iroquois were greatly 
surprised but nevertheless advanced steadily and let 
loose a shower of arrows. Champlain fired and killed 
two of the chief Iroquois, and wounded another, the lead 
pellets penetrating the arrow-proof shields carried by 
the enemy warriors. The entire band then turned and 
fled south toward their homes, a number being killed or 
captured. 

This encounter is placed by students of early history 
at Crown Point, at Ticonderoga, and other points be- 
tween and adjacent. On the map of explorations which 



Champlain drew for his narrative of discoveries printed 
in 1632 he designated a spot bearing some resemblance 
to the shore line between Crown Point and Ticonderoga, 
as just around a point of land to the south is indicated 
a fanciful body of water designated as the lake "by which 
we go to the Yroquois," evidently Lake George. He lo- 
cated the place as "43 degrees, some minutes, latitude." 
Champlain decided to give his name to the large lake, and 
map makers of succeeding generations have retained the 
present designation. The Algonquins and Champlain re- 
turned to Quebec, following their victory, and there was 
great rejoicing among the northern Indians. 

The next encounter of Champlain with members of 
the Iroquois federation was six years later, beyond the 
western limits of the Great Wilderness and the Lesser 
Wilderness bordering Lake Ontario and the Elack River 
country. In October of 1615 Champlain came down out 
of the Huron country on Georgian Bay, northeast of 
Lake Huron, to lend his promised aid in an attack on the 
Antouhonorons, as he called the people of those Indian 
villages to the south of Lake Ontario. He was accom- 
panied by a servant and eight Frenchmen from the Hu- 
ron mission of Le Caron, the Recollet father, who was 
already established in that distant country. After 
crossing Lake Ontario from the Bay of Quinte, past the 
entrance to the St. Lawrence and journeying inland, 
southeast, beyond Oneida Lake, his Huron friends made 
an unsuccessful attack on a stockaded village, assisted 
by some of Champlain's white companions with arque- 
busques. After a short siege the Hurcns became dis- 
couraged and retreated, carrying the wounded on crude 
litters. Champlain had received a painful wound in the 



leg, and was carried through the woods to the shore of 
Lake Ontario with great difficulty and suffering. He 
passed the winter in the Huron country and returned to 
Quebec by way of the Ottawa river in the spring of 1616, 
accompanied by the missionary Le Caron. 

DUTCH TRADERS AND SETTLERS. 

Meanwhile the Dutch had made a trading post at New 
Amsterdam, Manhattan Island, and their trading vessels 
were venturing up the Hudson to barter with the river 
Indians. The traders entered into friendly traffic with 
the "Mahicans" of the upper river, kindred of the Mohi- 
can Indians, all of whom were of Algonquin extraction. 
The Yroquis of Champlain were called Maquas by the 
Dutch, and their villages were located along the south side 
of the Mohawk River about 40 miles west of where the 
river flows into the Hudson. At a later date these vil- 
lages were moved to the north side of the Mohawk. In 
the vicinity of Albany were villages of the Mahicans, 
and here the Dutch built a fort at Castle Island in 1623, 
opposite to which there was a fortified encampment of 
Mahicans, enemies of the "Maquas." In 1626 the Dutch 
aided the Mahicans in an encounter with the Mohawks, 
and were defeated, but good relations were soon restored 
by friendly traders. It was reported that three of the 
defeated party in this encounter were eaten by the vic- 
tors, a usual procedure of these warriors when on the 
war path at the time when white men first encountered 
them, and for two or three generations afterward. 

It is asserted that a Dutch fort at the site of Albany 
was first built in 1614 and occupied until 1617, when the 
traders were forced to abandon it. In 1630 the Mahi- 

10 



cans decided to move away from their enemies, the Mo- 
hawks, and a great tract of land, 24 by 48 miles, was 
purchased from the Mahicans by Kilean Van Rensselear, 
a rich diamond merchant of Antwerp, and one of the first 
"Patroons" of the province of New Netherlands. The 
Dutch West India Company, chartered guardians of the 
new colony, had laid down a policy that insured friend- 
ship of the Indians — the declaration that all lands should 
be purchased from the natives in addition to whatever 
title might pass from the Company or home government. 

Down along the lower St. Lawrence the struggling 
colony of Champlain at Quebec was enduring much sick- 
ness and hardships, due to the severe weather of winter, 
the difficulty of raising food, and the lacks of adequate 
supplies from France. During one of the winters at this 
period Champlain seriously considered leading a raid up- 
on one of the towns of the Mohawks, to obtain sufficient 
food for the winter. 

The name "Mohawk" was not used by these Indians 
themselves, for they were called in their own tongue, 
"Canienga," People of the Flint, from their possession of 
the steel and flint stone for making fire. It was pre- 
sumed that the steel was originally obtained by barter 
from northern coast Indians who had traded with the 
European fishermen for perhaps a century before white 
men ventured into the interior of New York. 

EARLY IROQUOIS HISTORY. 

From the earliest accounts of French and Dutch 
traders, missionaries and explorers, as well as later re- 
ports of Iroquois traditions and legends, modern authori- 

11 



ties have put together an interesting and comprehensive 
history of the Iroquois federation, and its influence on 
the settlements and final ownership of the Adirondack 
Region, the basin of the Great Lakes and the St. Law- 
rence valley. 



Sometime between 1535, the year of Cartier's visit to 
Hochelaga, Montreal — and 1608, the year of Champlain's 
first journey to the same place, the final war had risen 
which resulted in the Iroquois retreating to central New 
York, the Mohawks by way of Champlain, and the Onon- 
dagas and Oneidas, and possibly others of the federation, 
by way of the St. Lawrence. The Senecas and Cayugas 
held a tradition that they came from the west, together 
with kindred tribes of the Erics and Andastes, who all 
spoke a similar language and had similar customs. When 
the white men came into this section, the five nations of 
central New York were grouped in a loose federation, 
which later developed to stronger proportions and pro- 
duced keen diplomats and eloquent orators during the 
two centuries of wars, negotiations and peace treaties 
with white and Indian enemies. The Mohawks held the 
eastern door of the "Long House," next came the Oneidas 
in the vicinity of Oneida Lake and the upper Mohawk 
river, then the Onondagas on the hills about Onondaga 
Lake, keepers of the great annual council fire and wam- 
pum belts that bound the federation in treaties. Beyond 
the Onondagas were the Cayugas settled near Cayuga 
Lake, and at the western end were the Senecas, in the 
valley of the Genesee River and later extending their ter- 
ritory to Niagara. 

12 



THE "LONG HOUSES." 

Villages were protected by strong stockades of tree 
trunks placed upright in the ground, sometimes in triple 
rows and inclined so as to cross at the top to provide a 
gallery for the defenders. Within the stockade were 
grouped the long houses, typical structures of the Iro- 
quois and kindred tribes, but never adopted by neighbor- 
ing Algonquins. Parallel rows of slim poles were placed 
in the ground, bent together at the top, and then covered 
with bark of the elm tree, the structure being narrow 
but sometimes long enough to hold a score of families. 
Holes in the roof at intervals allowed smoke from the sev- 
eral family fires to escape, and admitted some light. 
Doorways were at each end of the long structure, covered 
with bark or hides in winter. Over poles slung under 
the roof and on benches or in bark containers along the 
sides were stored maize, pumpkins, dried fish and meat 
and other provisions for the winter. The families slept 
on the floor or on the benches along the sides. Outside 
the stockades were fields cleared by burning down trees, 
and between stumps were the patches of maize, pump- 
kins, tobacco and beans for winter use — cultivated by the 
squaws. Villages were moved at intervals of from ten 
to twenty years, as the land became impoverished or 
firewood too distant for easy carrying. This accounts for 
the numerous sites of villages found in later times, and 
the apparent confusion in locations of tlie same peoples 
made by early writers. 

The New England Indians, those of the Hudson River 
villages, the Algonquins of Canada and of the western 
Great Lakes could all converse to some extent at least, 

13 



because of similar dialects, but the Iroquois could not 
speak to these except through interpreters or captives 
who had been adopted into tribes of the Federation and 
had become true warriors. The Iroquois were of a dif- 
ferent race, with different customs and religious beliefs, 
their only kindred being the Hurons, Tobacco Nation 
and Neutral Nation living between Georgian Bay and 
Niagara, the Eries to the southwest and the Andastes to 
the southeast along the Susquehanna River. Even these 
kindred peoples were not free from the relentless ferocity 
of the Iroquois, for the Hurons and Tobacco Nation were 
massacred or dispersed in 1649-50, the Neutral Nation 
met the same fate a year later, the Eries were also de- 
stroyed in 1654, and twenty years later the Andastes, 
after continuous warfare, were brought into subjection 
and made to pay tribute. From all of these the Iroquois 
adopted warriors to replenish their losses, and many 
women and children were merged into the Five Nations, 
to so great an extent that at one time in the latter part 
of the seventeenth century adopted warriors outnumber- 
ed native sons. Then in 1714 or 1715 a kindred nation 
from the Carolinas, the Tuscaroras, were admitted to 
membership as a sixth nation, and apportioned lands and 
hunting grounds near the Oneidas. However, they did 
not become equal members of the Federation, having 
representation but no vote at the great councils. It is 
probable that there are no Iroquois of pure blood descent 
today, owing to the wide practice of adopting enemies 
from all tribes. 

HI-A-WAT-HA FOUNDER OF THE LEAGUE. 
The federation of the Iroquois had not reached the 
more formal state of later days when Champlain and the 

14 



Dutch first encountered these people. But already the 
founders of the League were being clothed with mythical 
tradition, especially the wise man Hi-a-wat-ha, an Onon- 
daga who preached the gospel of federation, but like the 
usual prophets had to seek other fields to gain honor. 
He was adopted by the Mohawks, and they ratified his 
plan in solemn council, later gaining the approval of the 
Oneidas. The Onondagas were persuaded to join on the 
promise of holding the Great Council in their lands each 
year, and these in turn helped to persuade the Cayugas 
and Senecas. In the list of great chiefs entitled to sit 
in the Great Council, the Mohawks preserved the name 
of Hi-a-wat-ha. He was one of the nine, whose succes- 
sors were elected by solemn ceremony. 

There were fifty principal chiefs representing the 
Five Nations in this Great Council, 9 from the Mohawks, 
9 from the Oneidas, 14 Onondagas, 10 Cayugas, and 8 
Senecas. Later the Tuscaroras were represented by ten 
chiefs, but in the final determination of any plan of ac- 
tion for the entire League, each nation had but one vote. 
The names of all the original chiefs were preserved and 
given to elected successors. In raising a warrior to the 
rank of chief, nominations were generally made by the 
women, and hereditary chieftanships passed down 
through the female line. If such a chief died, his own 
son did not succeed, but a son of one of his sisters was 
selected. The opinions of women were heard in these 
councils through orators or chiefs chosen to represent 
them. 

CLANS AND ORATORY. 

Within each nation were clans or tribes, to one of 

15 



which every member belonged, and as the tribes were the 
same in all five nations, this helped to bind friendships 
between the peoples. All nations, however, did not pos- 
sess the full number of tribes or clans. The Mohawks 
and the Oneidas had only the three principal clans, the 
Bear, Wolf and Turtle. A warrior was required to mar- 
ry from a different clan than his own, and the children 
took the mother's designation. Visitors from one nation 
to another were supposed to be housed and entertained 
by members of their own clan. There were also frequent 
marriages between members of the different nations. At 
one time the Oneidas, who were never numerous, lost so 
many of their warriors that the Mohawks sent young 
men to supply husbands, and ever after these two nations 
were considered the closest of kindred. All these factors 
in relationship helped to strengthen the federation, 
while the training obtained in tribal councils and the 
Great Council in the land of the Onondagas produced 
orators and diplomats skilled beyond those of any savage 
people. The language of the orators was precise, fol- 
lowing well-defined forms of inflection, and in council the 
procedure was polite and of established custom, though 
often tiresome because of an orator's extended repeti- 
tions of his predecessors' points of argument. 

BELIEFS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 

The Iroquois held beliefs in many powerful super- 
natural personages, and had several stories of the crea- 
tion of the world. The Great Spirit, most powerful of 
all, was variously designated with good or evil attributes, 
but there were also demon spirits to whom sacrifices of 
enemy captives were often made. Areskoui is the name 

16 



of the powerful god or demon often mentioned in early 
commentaries. Then there were other spirits, benign or 
vengeful, inhabiting water falls, rocks, woods and rivers, 
or even possessing the bodies of familiar birds and 
beasts. The forest paths were often a realm of super- 
stitous dread to a lonely Indian, and even his wierd 
dreams could bring terror unless favorably interpreted 
by a medicine man. 

This latter individual was more often a dealer in 
charms and incantations than a healer. In fact, the In- 
dian medicine man knew little about the curative value of 
roots and herbs. There was general knowledge through- 
out the tribes of simple remedies, but these were often 
accompanied with incantations and practices that might 
prove fatal to the patient did he not have a vigorous con- 
stitution. Ceremonial dances were held at stated periods 
to celebrate lengendary events or seasons, or in connec- 
tion with religious superstitions, as for instance the 
"Feast of Dreams." This event was always a welcome 
opportunity for some avaricious individuals to obtain 
long coveted possessions of others. During this time 
those who had dreams calling for articles of wear or do- 
mestic use or armament would rush from house to house, 
simulating frenzy or madness, and their superstitious 
kinsmen would offer article after article until the right 
one proved a cure and was accepted by the "afflicted" per- 
son. These dreams had a powerful influence in urging 
on war parties, or in breaking down the spirit and deter- 
mination of the too often fickle savages. 

DUTCH TRADE POWERFUL FACTOR. 
Soon after the Dutch built their Fort Orange at Al- 

17 



bany and when settlers and traders began to take up land 
following Van Renssallaer's purchase from the Mahicans 
in 1630, there was opened up an extensive trade with the 
Mohawks. Especially did these Indians demand guns, 
powder and lead, for which they paid big prices in furs, 
and which they soon learned to use with skill. 

There had been intermittent warfare, with forays, 
surprises, captures and burning at the stake between 
Iroquois and their enemies, the Algonquins of the north 
and the Hurons of the west, and through the old war 
trails of the upper Hudson, Lake George, Lake Champlain 
and the Richelieu passed back and forth large and small 
bands of painted warriors. For fifty years the eastern 
trails were held by the Mohawks, while the western war 
route through woods and the St. Lawrence River were 
blocked by Oneidas and Onondagas, with occasional help 
from the Cayugas and Senecas. In 1622 a treaty of 
peace was negotiated, and the struggling French traders, 
settlers and missionaries were granted a short respite, 
but peace was broken again in 1627 and raged with fury 
until 1645, when another brief truce was made. During 
this time the war parties of the Mohawks ranged th<i 
woods about the lower St. Lawrence and drove the Algon- 
quins of the Ottawa River back into the distant and 
bleak wilderness of the north. One Mohawk war party 
in the middle of winter penetrated almost to Hudson Bay 
while pursuing a few families of Algonquins, slaughter- 
ing all when found. 

In July, 1629, appeared before Quebec the English 
fleet commanded by David Kirk, the French Hugenot 
of Dieppe, who claimed possession in the name of 

18 



England, and for a time the royal standard of France 
was lowered. The Jesuits who for years had been build- 
ing up misisons among the Hurons were recalled, and 
came back to Quebec by way of the Ottawa River. The 
Iroquois still barred the upper reaches of the St. Law- 
rence. This was the same year that the second chartered 
company of English settlers, the Puritans, landed on the 
coast of Massachusetts Bay, to found Boston and take 
over the new settlement of Salem established by some of 
their predecessors, the Pilgrims of Plymouth. 

The English soon left Quebec, and French influence 
among the northern and western Indians grew again. 
The traffic in furs was the chief means of living for those 
French colonists, and the frequent raids of Iroquois upon 
fur-laden canoes of the Algonquins and Hurons was a 
serious loss. In 1633 the first Frenchman was killed by 
the Mohawks, though there is early authority for the 
statement that another Frenchman was murdered in a 
village of the Mohawks in 1627 while trying to negotiate 
a truce. He was killed, it was claimed, by Seneca visit- 
ors who had recently suffered losses in battle. 

FIRST JOURNEY THROUGH MOHAWK 
COUNTRY. 

With their increased number of fire arms and skill in 
using them, the Mohawks became the terror of all neigh- 
boring tribes. Indians of the Hudson River, wampum- 
makers of the sea shore and New England Indians as far 
as the distant forests of Maine were forced to pay trib- 
ute, or fled for their lives. The Mohawks joined the 
western Iroquois in warfare on the Hurons, and became 
the chief warriors of the Five Nations. They remained 

19 



friendly with the Dutch at Fort Orange, upon whom they 
were dependent for arms, ammunition, cloth, knives, 
beads and other articles which in turn were often bar- 
tered at a profit with western members of the federation, 
or other tribes with whom they were at peace. Arent 
Van Curler, a Dutch trader at Fort Orange, made a 
journey across the country of the Mohawks and Oneidas 
as far as Oneida Lake in 1634, the earliest recorded by 
any white man. Van Curler was a cousin of the Patroon 
Van Renssalaer, and an officer of the colony with station 
at the post of Renssalaervick. It was his influence that 
held the Indians in their friendly relations with the 
Dutch. 

In 1642 Governor Montmagny and Sieur Maisson- 
neuve went to the island of Montreal, ancient site of 
Hochelaga, with a gallant company of men and women, 
religious and lay workers, to establish a settlement, and 
the work began with formal religious ceremonies, songs 
and music. Governor Montmagny was called by the Hu- 
rons "Onontio" from his name, Great Mountain, and the 
name was always used by the Iroquois and western In- 
dians for later governors of New France. The governor 
in the same year constructed a wooden fort at Sorrel, on 
the "River of the Iroquois," to guard against depreda- 
tions of the Mohawks. 

DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 

This same year marked the discovery by white men 
of Lake George. The story of Father Jogues' capture 
and captivity has been told by many historians. The 
principal authority for all is Jogues' own account in 
"Jesuit Relations" of subsequent years, and latter day 

20 



reports of those early officials and ecclesiasts who laid the 
foundation of French empire in the New World. From 
1632 to 1672 the "Relations" annually told the story of 
early missionary experiences and stirring adventure 
among savage peoples. From these books 200 years later 
students of aboriginal life located ancient village sites 
and reconstructed history, traditions, habits and beliefs 
of nations and tribes long since dispersed. 

It was upon a fair morning of August, 1642, that 
Father Jogues, of the Society of Jesus, with two white 
companions, Rene Goupil and William Couture, and a 
number of Huron Christians, embarked in canoes on the 
St. Lawrence at Three Rivers. They were bound on that 
long and difficult journey up the Ottawa River, through 
Lake Nippising and across Georgian Bay to the country 
of the Hurons, where a number of well-constructed mis- 
sions were established. The shorter jonrneys by way of 
the St. Lawrence and Champlain's old route up the Bay 
of Quinte and Trent River, or along the north shore of 
Lake Ontario to the Toronto portage, were barred since 
the days of the first governor by war parties and hunters 
of the western Iroquois. 

When Jogues' party entered that wide expanse of the 
St. Lawrence River, called Lake St. Peter, above Three 
Rivers, they were surprised by a larger number of Mo- 
hawks, and the three white men and several Hurons were 
taken prisoners. They were beaten with clubs, their fin 
gers were chewed and lacerated and other tortures ap 
plied by the victorious savages, who were infuriated by 
the loss of a chief in the struggle. Then began the lonr 
journey up the Richelieu River, and into Lake Champlain 

21 



the captives being made to carry great burdens, subject 
to tortures at any time, and tied to stakes or trees at 
night in such a manner that the buzzing, stinging insects 
of the forest kept them in continual torment. After 
eight days the party entered Lake Champlain and passed 
that spot where Champlain had encountered the Iroquois 
33 years before. They met a hunting party of Mohawks, 
and the prisoners were forced to run the gantlet and 
suffer further tortures. They crossed to the waters of 
Lake George, then unknown and unchartered, passed on 
to the Hudson and to Ossernenon, the Indian town on the 
south side of the Mohawk River, about forty miles west, 
of Albany, or Fort Orange, as the Dutch settlement was 
then called. In the three towns of the Mohawks the 
white men and the Hurons were subjected to tortures, 
Rene Goupil being killed on September 29th, while Jogues 
and Coture were given to Mohawk families as slaves. 

CAPTIVITY OF JOGUES. 
For many months Jogues was forced to accompany 
his savage captors on hunting and fishing expeditions 
throughout the wilderness region, set to menial tasks, 
scorned and ridiculed, but always attempting to bring 
some light of Christianity to the heathen. Upon the 
trees of the forest he carved the symbols of his faith, and 
though in danger of torture or death at any passing whim 
of the Indians, he spoke in stern and silencing reproof 
to them when they attempted to transfer ridicule to his 
person to ridicule of his God. 

In October of 1643 Father Jogues escaped from his 
captivity, with the aid of the Dutch trader Van Curler, 
who paid a ransom to quiet the anger of the Mohawks. 

22 



Jogues returned to France, and in the next year again 
came to Canada as a missionary. In 1644 the Mohawks 
captured another French missionary, Bressani, author 
of an early history of the missions and Indians customs. 
He was bound up the St. Lawrence for the Huron coun- 
try, and the Mohawks took him to their villages, sub- 
jected him to frequent tortures, and later sold him for 
ransom money to the Dutch. 

In 1645 the Mohawks made a treaty of peace with the 
French, but the treaty did not include western members 
of the federation who continued warfare on the Hurons, 
Montagnais and Algonquin allies of the French. Mo- 
hawks and Algonquins hunted freely together in the 
Adirondack country, a thing that had not happened in 
generations. 

LAKE NAMED "ST. SACRAMENT.'' 
In May of 1646 Father Jogues and Bourdon ascended 
the old war trail of the Richelieu and Champlain as 
peaceful ambassadors to the Mohawks and the Dutch at 
Fort Orange. In crossing from Lake Champlain to the 
Hudson they followed the old Indian trail across to 
where "They arrived on the eve of St. Sacrement at the 
end of a lake which is joined to the great lake of Cham- 
plain. The Indian name is 'Andiatarocte,' which is to 
say, There where the lake is shut in.' The Father named 
it lake of S. Sacrement." 

It was not until one hundred and ten years later that 
the name Lake George was given to this water of sur- 
passing beauty by Colonel Johnson, Indian commissioner 
in the Province of New York, during his construction 

23 



of a fortified post at the southern end of the lake in the 
last French and Indian war. 

Father Jogues made a second journey to the Mohawks 
in September of 1646, with the hope of continuing his 
missionary work, but he was siezed by a war party, 
stripped of clothing and possessions, and threatened on 
his arrival. The Bear clan decreed his death, but the 
Wolf and Turtle tribes were peacefully inclined and 
urged friendship. On October 18th, 1646, while bending 
to enter a house to which he had been invited for a meal, 
Jogues was struck down by a hatchet, and thus ended 
the life of the first missionary in the perilous work 
which became known for a century as the "Mission of the 
Martyrs." At Auriesville, on the south side of the Mo- 
hawk, is a shrine on the site of the old Indian town, 
commemorating the death of Jogues and Goupil. 

It was in this same decade that the Jesuit mission- 
aries, Brebeuf, Charles Gamier and Gabriel Lalemant, 
met death by torture at the hands of the Iroquois in those 
western raids which wiped out three kindred peoples, the 
Hurons, the Neutral Nation and the Tobacco Nation — 
all living between Niagara River and Georgian Bay of 
Lake Huron. 

In 1645 the Dutch made their first formal treaty of 
peace and friendship with the Mohawks, though trading 
had been carried on freely ever since the first boats as- 
cended the Hudson as far as Fort Orange. Following 
this treaty the power of the Mohawks increased steadily, 
their villages were better constructed with the aid of 
steel axes and carpenters' tools, and their armament of 

24 



guns put them at the head of the Iroquois Federation. 
Their old sachems with lordly demeanor acting as tax 
gatherers, exacted tribute from the New England and 
Hudson Indians, and they carried the wampum, a com- 
paratively recent innovation, to the west for barter. 
Through this means as well as their own hunting 
throughout the Adirondack^ and adjacent forests they 
brought great stores of furs to the Dutch traders. 

EARLIEST JOURNEY AROUND WILDERNESS. 

The first white man to make the complete journey 
around the vast wilderness of the north was Pere Poncet, 
a missionary who was captured in August of 1653 by a 
band of Mohawks on the lower St. Lawrence. He was 
brought to the Mohawk villages by way of the Richelieu 
and lakes Champlain and George, but was released from 
captivity in October through efforts of friendly Indians 
who wished for a continuation of the truce which per- 
mitted free hunting and trading with both Dutch and 
French. Poncet was guided westward over the old Mo- 
hawk trail to Lake Ontario, and down the St. Lawrence 
to safety. In his relation of the adventure he said : 

"I was only a month in the land of the Iroquois. I 
came in the fourth of September; I went out the third of 
October. * * I was taken by the river of the Iroquois 
and Lake Champlain, and consequently there were but 
two days of the jonrney by land. And I was brought 
back by another route, so that I have passed over the two 
routes which their armies and their warriors take when 
they come in search of us." 

The entire Iroquois Federation were disposed toward 
25 



peace, and asked for French missionaries, settlers and 
craftsmen to be sent to them. It was in 1656 that the 
first white settlement was made in the lands of the Onon- 
dagas, when a party of 50 or 60 French soldiers and set- 
tlers were established on the shores of Onondaga Lake, 
under the leadership of the Jesuit LeMoyne. He was the 
missionary who had first visited the Onondagas on Au- 
gust 5th, 1653, and on August 16th discovered the famous 
salt springs, which had until his coming no use among the 
Indians, who believed the waters possessed of evil spirits 
because of the taste. This settlement was abandoned in 
1658 when the war spirit again broke out among the 
Iroquois, and the settlers escaped in March of that year, 
through strategy, in the night, and by forcing their 
canoes through ice-covered waters. 

WARS AND TRUCES. 

The Mohawk war trails of the Adirondacks and Lake 
Champlain as well as the St. Lawrence River route were 
again the scenes of war expeditions. The northern tribes 
of Canada were forced back beyond the line of the Ottawa 
River, and in the west the Huron country was a vast 
solitude as far as Lake Superior. The Iroquois, led by 
the fierce Mohawks, were sole masters of these h anting 
grounds, and relentlessly exterminated their enemies. 

In 1661 the missionary Le Moyne again ventured up 
the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to the lands of the 
Onondagas, where he gained some measure of peace and 
effected the exchange of numerous prisoners. 

The Dutch settlements about Fort Orange were in- 
creasing in number and prosperity, and in 1661 the lands 
at Schenectady were purchased from the Indians and 

26 



settlement started there. 

In 1662 Governor Peter Stuyvesant, "Wooden-Leg" as 
the Indians called him, was at Fort Orange to ransom 
Kennebec Indians from the Mohawks, whose war parties 
had ranged to the most distant Maine woods. These Mo- 
hawks had also killed English cattle, though they usually 
maintained friendly relations with the white settlers of 
New England, who on many occasions offered bounties 
for help of the Iroquois against the French and Indians 
of the north. 

In the fierce struggles of the New England colonists 
with King Philip and his Indians the Mohawks rendered 
invaluable aid, defeating a much larger force of King 
Philip's warriors and dispersing many bands. The New 
England Indians at that time did not fear the white set- 
tlers, but so terrible had the Mohawks become that fami- 
lies or entire villages would flee to distant woods upon 
report of "A Mohawk, a Mohawk," as Colden told in his 
early history. 

The great earthquake of 1663 in the valley of the St. 
Lawrence was felt throughout the Adirondack Region, 
especially in the north and west, but no such upheavals 
or changes occurred as were reported by the French to 
the north. 

ENGLISH TAKE POSSESSION. 

In 1664 the English fleet sent out by Charles II, who 
had been restored to the throne in 1660, seized New Am- 
sterdam and took over the province of New Netherlands, 
as the Dutch territory was called. The King gave the 
province to his brother James, Duke of York and Albany, 

27 



afterward James II. Many settlers from New England 
were already in the province, and other followed rapidly. 
The settlement at Fort Orange was named Albany, and 
in the same year the English made a formal treaty of 
friendship with the Five Nations, continuing the policy 
of the Dutch. The latter were permitted to continue 
their trade, as English subjects, and for nearly 75 years 
they and their descendants maintained almost a monopoly 
of traffic with Indians of the north and west. 

COURCELLE'S EXPEDITIONS. 

Canada was suffering so severely under the depreda- 
tions of the Iroquois that firm measures were taken by 
France to sustain the small population settled at Quebec, 
Three Rivers, Montreal and the farm lands along the 
lower St. Lawrence. In 1665 the Marquis De Tracy, an 
able soldier, came to New France with Governor Cour- 
celle, bringing troops of veteran French regiments to 
guard the outlying farms, and to garrison small forts 
constructed along the Richelieu River. In the following 
midwinter Governor Courcelle with some 500 men includ- 
ing his soldiers unaccustomed to snowshoes, Indian 
guides and French Canadian settlers, marched on snow- 
shoes up the old Iroquois trail, along the St. Lawrence, 
Champlain valley and Hudson portage to the villages of 
the Mohawk Indians. He burned stockades, log huts and 
supplies, capturing some prisoners, and then hurried back 
to the St. Lawrence. In the following October he again 
invaded the Mohawk country, and so alarmed these old 
enemies of the French that a peace treaty was entered 
into, lasting until 1683. Governor Courcelle constructed 
Fort St. Anne on Isle La Motte at the north of Lake 

28 



Champlain, and formally declared possession of all the 
lands south as far as the Mohawk villages, making claim 
to territory beyond that indicated on Champlain's early 
maps. 

In the following year, 1667, French missionaries 
crossed the eastern Adirondack trail and were established 
among the Mohawks and Oneidas. 

Arent Van Curler of Albany, the Dutch trader and 
friend of the Mohawks, was out on a hunting expedition 
with these Indians in 1667, and was drowned in Lake 
Champlain in the bay later called Bay of Perou, but 
then named "Corlear's" bay. There was a great rock on 
the shore, supposed to cover the spirit of an Indian war- 
rior who governed the winds and waves of the lake. The 
Indians paid tribute of tobacco or other offerings when 
passing, but Van Curler was outspoken in contemptuous 
defiance of this superstitution, and as his canoe was up- 
set at the time, the Indians attributed his fate to the 
wrathful spirit. Lake Champlain became known as "Cor- 
lears Lake" among early Dutch and English for 50 or 60 
years. 

"CORLEAR" AND "ONONTIO." 

This name "Corlear" was the title given Van Curler 
by his Indian friends, and also the title given by all the 
Iroquois to subsequent royal governors of New York. 
The Indians often interpreted it as "brother," while the 
title of the French governor of Canada, "Onontio," was 
frequently given the meaning or emphasis of "father," 
a distinction which was made much of in latter day nego- 
tiations between the whites and the Indians. 

29 



During this truce Mohawk converts of the French left 
their homes and settled on mission lands at St. Francis, 
near Quebec. They became allies of the French in later 
raids and wars, and their descendants are still to be 
found at this old mission as well as at Caughnawaga, the 
later Indian mission town on the south side of the St. 
Lawrence near Montreal, and the St. Regis reservation 
along the international boundary line at the St. Law- 
rence. 

The Adirondacks were the great hunting grounds for 
beaver, deer, elk, bear and other game, and the furs were 
generally traded at Albany where the prices of guns, 
powder, cloth, trinkets and rum were cheaper than in the 
French posts at Montreal and the lower St. Lawrence 
settlements. This traffic in rum by English and Dutch 
traders and in brandy by the French was a source of 
great profit, but likewise of great demoralization and 
trouble among the Indians. Some of the chiefs protested 
against it, as did the missionaries of all faiths and lead- 
ing men among the early colonists. The bitter contro- 
versy in Canada was the occasion of the recall of two 
early governors. 

It was during this peaceful decade that La Salle, Gal- 
linee, Marquette, Joliet, Du Lhut and others were ex- 
ploring Ontario and western lakes and rivers, visiting 
the Iroquois and adding further to the French claims to 
northern and western New York — never settled until the 
final peace treaty of 1763. 

GOVERNOR FRONTENAC. 
In 1672 the vigorous Count Frontenac, governor of 

30. 



New France and one of the most forceful and remarkable 
figures of colonial times, established Fort Frontenac on 
the present site of Kingston, a strategic spot guarding 
the head of the St. Lawrence and mouth of Lake Ontario. 
He held a great conference with Iroquois chieftains, war- 
riors and their families, and made a powerful impression 
upon the savages. A trading post was established, in 
charge of La Salle, and drew pelts obtained by the In- 
dians in the western Adirondacks as well as the vast 
reaches of wilderness to the west. 

For a brief period in 1673 the Province of New York 
again came under the control of the Dutch, whose fleet 
siezed the port of New York, but it was ceded back to the 
English during negotiations of 1674. 

The New England settlers were spreading west and 
north in Massachusetts, in the territory along the coast 
of Maine and its rivers, in southern New Hampshire, set 
up as a separate province in 1691, in the lands of western 
Connecticut and southern Vermont, along the Connecticut 
River. The "Great Emigration" of 1630-40, when 20,000 
Puritans came to Massachusetts, resulted in numerous 
settlements and rapid growth of the English colonies, a 
growth steady and vigorous as new families crossed the 
sea to add to the numerous progency of the pioneers. In 
the upper Hudson region about Albany and along the 
Mohawk, forests gave way to clearings and log homes of 
the advancing Dutch and English. 

Mohawks hunted and traded across the Adirondack 
region, visiting and bartering in Montreal and Quebec, 
as in Albany. Their war parties ranged from the Maine 

31 



woods to the banks of the Mississippi, raiding the Illinois 
tribes and western fur traders. This latter warfare was 
due to the desire of the Iroquois to force the western fur 
trade to come east by way of Albany and New York, by 
which course the Iroquois themselves obtained profit as 
traders or guides or canoemen. They were supported in 
their efforts by traders of Albany and New York, and 
this brought protest from Governor De La Barre of Can- 
ada, who entered into vigorous correspondence with Gov- 
ernor Dongan of the Province of New York. In 1684 
De La Barre held an unsatisfactory conference with the 
Iroquois at La Famine Bay, on the south shore of Lake 
Ontario, the Indians arrogantly proclaiming their inten- 
tion of warring on the western allies of the French. De 
La Barre was succeeded in 1685 by Governor De Nonville, 
and the latter in 1687 took more vigorous action to sub- 
due the Iroquois, invading their country and burning 
houses and corn crops. 

The Iroquois in this same year made a treaty of 
friendship and alliance with the English governor of New 
York, and in later years of negotiations between the con- 
tending white nations this treaty was used as evidence 
that the Five Nations were subjects of the English King. 

During the peace negotiations between the French 
and Iroquois in 1688 a Huron or "Dionondadie" chief 
named Kondiaronk siezed ambassadors of the Onondagas 
bound for Montreal, falsely attributing his action to 
French instruction, and this soon caused the war to be 
resumed with incredible ferocity. 

The Mohawks with their canoes took the eastern route 
by way of the Champlain and Richelieu, while the west- 

32 



ern members of the federation descended the St. Law- 
rence to waylay traders and settlers, burning outlying 
houses and farm buildings, killing hundreds and taking 
many into captivity. The terror of these numerous and 
unforeseen raids was so great that it was feared settle- 
ments at Montreal and nearby points would have to be 
abandoned. The Iroquois captured many of their con- 
verted kinsmen at the mission settlements of "The Moun- 
tain" on the island of Montreal and at Caughnawaga, on 
the south side of the St. Lawrence, above the rapids at 
Montreal. These captives were led back to the Iroquois 
villages to replenish the depleted ranks of warriors, for 
these ferocious savages had lost many men in their raids. 

The revolution in England in 1688 which resulted in 
the expulsion of James II and the seating of a new king, 
t>»A Dutch prince William of Orange, brought turmoil to 
the colonists of New York. Out of these disturbances 
arose Jacob Leisler, merchant and captain of a trained 
band of militia in New York, who was proclaimed gov- 
ernor by his supporters. The men of Massachusetts had 
deprived Governor Edmund Andros of the authority 
given him by James II over the combined colonies — New 
England, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. Leis- 
ler entered upon a brief career as governor of New York. 
He replied to the protests of Governor De Nonville of 
Canada, who blamed the English for providing arms and 
encouragement to the Iroquois. 

FIRST "FRENCH AND INDIAN" WAR. 

The declaration of war between England and France, 
known as William and Mary's war, resulted in the first 
"French and Indian War" blazing up with fury all along 

33 



i af settlement 

168 ant Frontenec, in his ?Ott ; ear, 

was sent back :; Cai sg em the French King, 

- V.Y. ..•• d the colonists took r his vig- 

orous personality s nemsures, A Donative 

as rganised and wen! up the Ettchelieu-C 
route, crossing the Hudson y. : . capturing Sche- 

aectadj in Ft 1690. This settlement was at that 

time i mixed village of Dutch and Mohawks, and many 
/:" both were killed or captured, and buildings burned. 

Carta::: Alexander Glen, the dm st prominent resident 
of the vicinity, lived across the river from Schenectady, 
He had several times befriended French captives u 
the Mohawks, and as a recompense the commander of 
the invaders, Iberville, allowed him tc choose out all his 
relatives from the ranks . vf captives. He included ■ re- 
markable number within the bonds of kinship, and then 
the French returned to the St. Lawrence v 
. aptives, 

The Rnglish, Dutch wad Iroquois were often assisted 
::: these war raids by a tribe of Ifahicans, the I Mips or 
es, who had settled at Schaghticoke, on the Hudson 
above Albany, in 1672, They were former masters of 
lands along the Hudson rc.tr Albany but had be* 
the Mohawks, settling in New Engh: 
which the;.- returned t: these new Haas::: river settle- 
ments, For many years they hunted throughout the 
Adirondack and New England forests, traded at Albany 
finally came under the influence of the 
ch missionaries, Their descendants may be found 

34 



today among the Indians of the St. Francis mission near 
Quebec. They were kindred of the Mohicans of New 
England, described by Cooper in the Leatherstocking 
Tales. 

The raiding parties sent out by the French began to 
be felt so keenly along the New York and New England 
borders that two expeditions against Canada were 
planned in 1690 for a combined force of English and In- 
dians, one by way of Champlain and the Richelieu, and 
the other by way of the St. Lawrence. Neither expedi- 
tion was carried out. At Lake George the Indians made 
elm bark canoes, but the English forces were doubtful 
about this mode of conveyance. Also, smallpox broke 
out among the forces, and the expedition was abandoned. 

Governor Sloughter of New York planned further 
measures against Canada in L691, in order to forestall 
Count Frontcnac's preparations. Major Schuyler of Al- 
bany with '500 Mohawks and 150 whites raided forts and 
farms on the lower Richelieu, killing many soldiers and 
settlers. The Iroquois renewed their fearful raids on 
all outlying French settlements. 

FRENCH RAID ON MOHAWK TOWNS. 

In January of 1693 an expedition of six or seven hun- 
dred men organized at Quebec by Count Frontenac came 
up the Richelieu-Champlain route, following the trail of 
Courceles 27 years before, passing Schenectady February 
8th, and attacking and destroying three Mohawk towns. 
About 300 prisoners, including 100 warriors, were cap- 
tured, and then a rapid retreat was made through the 
forest, covered with depths of snow. English, Dutch and 

35 



Indians followed under Major Schuyler and the two for- 
ces came together in the woods near the Hudson, where 
hasty barriers of felled trees were thrown together. For 
two or three days the opposing forces fought intermit- 
tently from these barriers, or tried to find warmth from 
camp fires built at the bottom of scooped-out hollows in 
the deep snow. Both sides were on short rations, but the 
English and Dutch suffered most because in the haste of 
their organization insufficient supplies were gathered. 
The Mohawks were more comfortable, for most of them 
adhered to the practices of their forebears on the war 
path, utilizing for food the bodies of fallen enemies or 
enemies killed for that purpose alone. Major Schuyler 
in later years related to Caldwalder Colden, the early his- 
torian of New York, that while cold and hungry he had 
been offered food by his Mohawk allies, but suddenly lost 
his appetite when he discovered the source of their food 
supply. 

Pursuit of the French was given up on February 20th, 
after their forces had safely crossed the Hudson on an 
opportune ice jam. 

Raids of the French and their Indian allies were car- 
ried from the Maine coast to the frontier settlements of 
Virginia, and in 1694 Governor Fletcher of Virginia 
called a council to meet at Albany to take united action. 
The Iroquois had sent peace ambassadors to Count Fron- 
tenac at Quebec, but the English governor and Dutch 
leaders at Albany were able to hold the League to the 
defense of the colony. 

Count Frontenac restored the fort at Frontenac, 
abandoned under DeNonville in 1688, and gathered 

36 



around this post on the north side of Lake Ontario many 
families of friendly Cayugas and Senecas. The English 
feared the growing influence of the French with western 
Indians, and the increasing trade flowing down to Mon- 
treal and Quebec. 

In the winter of 1695-96 Frontenac planned another 
raid on the Mohawk towns, but abandoned the plan owing 
to the severity of the winter and the report of seven feet 
of snow all the way from Montreal to the Mohawk river. 

IROQUOIS SUBDUED. 

In the summer of 1696 the French invaded the Onon- 
daga country by way of the St. Lawrence and Lake On- 
tario. Frontenac had some 1400 soldiers and 450 In- 
dians, who laid waste Onondaga and Oneida towns and 
destroyed crops and food supplies, but had no encounters 
with the Iroquois, who fled on the approach of the 
French. This raid of Frontenac taught the Iroquois that 
they were not immune to attack, either at the "eastern 
door" of the Mohawks or in the west. They sent emis- 
saries with peace belts to Frontenac, and before the end 
of 1697 prisoners were exchanged and peace concluded. 
Governor Bellomont of New York wished to negotiate for 
the Iroquois, but they proclaimed their independence and 
held to their own authority. 

In the peace settlement known as the treaty of Rys- 
wick between English and French in 1697, Port Royal 
in Acadia, which had been taken by New England forces, 
was ceded back to the French, but the northern line of 
New York was not settled, nor were the western spheres 
of influence of French and English. The rival claim:, 

37 



were a source of conflict for more than a half century 
afterward. 

Governor Bellomont held a great council of the Iro- 
quois at Albany in 1700, and promised to send English 
missionaries and smiths to the Indian village to counter- 
act the influence of the French. He also promised to 
build a fort on Onondaga lake, but this was not construct- 
ed for many years owing to objection by the people at 
Albany, who feared the removal of their dwindling fur 
trade. The Adirondack region and the forests of central 
New York had been so thoroughly hunted that the In- 
dians could no longer provide great numbers of pelts, un- 
less they undertook long and toilsome journeys, or traf- 
ficked with western savages. 

BEGINNING OF SECOND WAR. 

On the outbreak of "Queen Anne's War," or the "War 
of the Spanish Succession" in Europe in 1702, called the 
second French and Indian War when it resulted in con- 
flict in America in 1704, all the Iroquois nations except 
the Senecas, were persuaded by Peter Schuyler of Albany 
to side with the English. However, they sent secret word 
to the French that they would not take the war path. 
They had learned a severe lesson from Governor Fron- 
tenac, and in all the subsequent years of warfare the St. 
Lawrence was never closed to French traffic, though some 
war parties used this route, while many others went by 
way of Champlain and the eastern Adirondacks. Massa- 
chusetts entered into negotiations for Iroquois aid in this 
renewal of the old border warfare, offering bounty money 
for scalps, a practice common with both forces. 

38 



The Indians were feeling bitter toward the English 
officials, saying that they had been robbed by land specu- 
lators, cheated by traders, and given little support in the 
late war. 

New York's northern border defenses were in poor 
condition. The forts at Albany and Schenectady were 
decayed and neglected. One hundred and eighty of the 
King's soldiers were stationed at Albany, in rags, and 
sustained only by voluntary contributions of leading resi- 
dents. The Indians did not believe that these soldiers 
could be of much protection against the French. It was 
said at the time that two-thirds of the Mohawks had re- 
moved across the Adirondacks to Caughnawaga, with 
some Oneidas and a few of the other Iroquois. 

These northern Iroquois and other Canadian Indians 
participated in the French raids all along the northern 
border, including the famous raid and burning of Deer- 
field, Mass., February 28th, 1704. This was the encount- 
er in which Rev. John Williams and his family were cap- 
tured with numerous others, separated in the retreat and 
compelled to walk the long journey up the Connecticut 
river, west along the frozen White river, across the divide 
of the White Mountains, down the stream called French 
river, later Winoski, or Onion, to the frozen and bleak- 
surface of Lake Champlain a little north of the present 
city of Burlington, from which they reached the first 
resting place and shelter at the French outpost at Cham- 
bly, thence to Montreal. During negotiations for ex- 
change of prisoners during the next two or three years 
most of the survivors of this ordeal were returned to 
their families. The Champlain route was used by the 

39 



exchange envoys of Massachusetts. 

SMUGGLERS DURING WARFARE. 

The New York Iroquois were not so active in retali- 
ating by raids across the northern frontier as in former 
years. During these years of open war the rivalry for 
western trade continued keen, and French traders at Mon- 
treal were often able to secure goods from Albany mer- 
chants by employing Mohawks at Caughnawaga to visit 
their kinsmen south of Champlain, and bring back sup- 
plies negotiated for in this roundabout manner. British 
warships hampered sea traffic by way of the Atlantic 
and St. Lawrence route, also in winter the supplies of 
trading articles could not be renewed by way of the sea 
because the St. Lawrence was frozen over. Thus goods 
obtained at Albany made a long journey to the western 
Great Lakes to be bartered by the French for furs which 
the English and colonial traders were themselves anxious 
to obtain. 

Peter Schuyler and others at Albany kept in touch 
with the Caughnawaga Mohawks and frequently gave 
warning to Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine 
settlements of impending raids. These were frequent 
upon towns such as Dover, Exter, Casco, Kingston, Wells, 
York, Groton, Lancaster, and others. 

It was not until 1709 that the New York Assembly, 
co-operating with Col. Ingoldsby, lieutenant-governor, en- 
tered to any extent into the war plans of other colonies, 
and then the project was formed of capturing Quebec by 
sea, with a land force operating down the Champlain val- 
ley. A force of 1500 militia under Col. Nicholson, in- 

40 



eluding a number of Iroquois, were assembled at Albany, 
then built a stockaded fort opposite Saratoga, and an- 
other at the Great Carrying Place, called Fort Nichloson, 
later Fort Lydius, and eventually Fort Edwards. They 
cut a road through to Woods Creek, leading into Cham- 
plain, and built another stockaded fort, later rebuilt and 
named Fort Anne. Ramesay, the local governor of Mon- 
treal, with a force of 1500 men, Canadians and Indians, 
was sent to oppose the rumored invasion, and he ad- 
vanced south as far as Crown Point where a few English 
canoes were encountered. After a slight skirmish both 
withdrew to their bases. The sea expedition to Quebec 
was abandoned, and as a pestilence broke out at Fort 
Anne on Woods Creek, this post was also abandoned be- 
fore Fall. 

The English maintained a small fortified post at 
Crown Point, from which scouting and raiding parties 
of whites with Iroquois and Schaghticoke Indians were 
sent out north and east, as well as from the log fort at 
Woods Creek. The Province of New York maintained 
600 Indian warriors and a thousand members of their 
families at Albany for a long period during this conflict. 

MOHAWKS VISIT ENGLAND. 

In 1709 occurred the famous visit of Mohawk chief- 
tans, under guidance of Colonel Schuyler of Albany, to 
the court of Queen Anne of England, where the redskins 
were regaled with much ceremony. The British cabinet 
were brought to realize the advisability of maintaining 
friendly relations and a strong protectorate over the Five 
Nations, if northern and western New York were to be 
held for the British crown. Queen Anne ordered Eng- 

41 



lish missionaries sent to the Iroquois, and presented two 
sets of silver plate for their church services, one of the 
sets being preserved at the State Museum at Albany to- 
day. 

When Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia) on the 
Bay of Fundy was captured by New England and British 
forces in October, 1710, the principal eastern fortified 
post of the French was lost, and this brought renewed 
plans of operation by them through the old Champlain 
route. 

In 1711 Colonel Nicholson's forces of militia and In- 
dians, 2300 men, were again assembled at Woods Creek, 
ready to descend the Champlain route to aid in the ex- 
pected capture of Quebec. Admiral Walker's fleet, with 
numerous sailors and soldiers aboard, had sailed from 
Boston for the Gulf of St. Lawrence to make the first at- 
tack, but many of the ships were wrecked on the north- 
ern shores of the gulf, forcing the abandonment of the 
expedition. Upon hearing the news Colonel Nicholson 
in a great rage burned the fort and returned to Albany, 
where his forces were disbanded. An outpost of 150 men 
was left to guard against French and Indian scalping 
parties. 

PEACE AGAIN ALONG THE BORDER. 

The Treaty of Utrecht in 1731 brought temporary 
peace to the northern border. Acadia (Nova Scotia) was 
ceded to England, but there was still dispute over the 
northern boundary. This dispute, as well as the rivalry 
for trade and the enmity of northern Indians for en- 
croaching settlers, brought frequent raids in New Eng- 

42 



land during following years, though the French and Eng- 
lish colonial officials were formally at peace. Abenaki 
Indians of Main and the lower St. Lawrence, together 
with French woodsmen, often used the Champlain route, 
or starting from Quebec, went up the Chaudiere, across 
hills and swamps to the headwaters of the Kennebec in 
Maine, and then down to the settlements and outlying 
farms. This later, in reverse, was the route taken by 
General Arnold in the advance on Quebec during the 
Revolutionary War. 

In the winter of 1724-1725, the Champlain route was 
used by Col. Samuel Thaxter and Col. William Dudley, 
envoys of Lieutenant Governor William Dummer of 
Massachusetts, to negotiate for prisoners captured by 
Indians in those border raids, and to stop the troublesome 
warfare on outlying settlements of Maine, New Hamp- 
shire and Massachusetts. Some of the New York Mo- 
hawks aided the New England militia in their attacks 
on Maine Indians. Mohawks and Schaghticokes went to 
Boston, where they were offered $100 for scalps of Cana- 
dian warriors. French writers usually designated the 
Schaghticokes as the "Nation of the Wolves" — Loups. 
There was general peace along the northern New York 
border, because the contest was over influence and settle- 
ment on disputed territory to the east. An extensive 
trade was maintained by merchants of New York and Al- 
bany across the Champlain route, the goods generally 
being used by the French traders for traffic with western 
Indians. 

COLDEN'S LITTLE HISTORY. 

In 1727 Caldwalder Colden, the physician, lawyer, 

43 



naturalist and colonial official, wrote his famous little 
"History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada Depend- 
ent Upon the Province of New York." Its object was 
to show English officials and men of influence that the 
Five Nations should be conciliated, and western trade 
wrested from the French if the northern and western 
frontiers were to be made safe, and the colony prosper- 
ous. The French were supplied almost entirely with 
woolen goods from New York by way of Albany and 
Champlain, or by sea to the St. Lawrence. This traffic was 
officially prohibited in 1727, the embargo causing severe 
controversy, but as a fortified trading post was built at 
Oswego on Lake Ontario the same year, the result was 
an increase in trade with western Indians. Colden said 
that 300 men were engaged in traffic at Oswego that year, 
and that the move was fully justified by the results. 

FIRST FORT AT CROWN POINT. 

In 1726 the French made first attempts to establish 
a post on the eastern side of Lake Champlain, opposite 
Crown Point. Massachusetts and New Hampshire both 
protested, claiming the territory. New Hampshire had 
been established under a separate charter in 1791, and 
claimed the Champlain country as its own. Then in 1731 
the French took possession of the land at Crown Point 
and fortified it under direction of Sieur de la Fresniere. 
Governor Beauharnois of Canada expected that it would 
be necessary to drive away English traders, but none 
were found. The fort was named Fort Frederic, and 
contained a massive stone tower commanding the narrow 
lake. 

An offer was made by Governor Beauharnois in 1739 

44 



to deed to the Mohawk Indians the lands between Crown 
Point and the Hudson portage as hunting gounds. The 
French held to their old claims of title to this territory. 

OUTBREAK OF A NEW WAR. 

Soon after the declaration of war between England 
and France in 1744, known as the War of the Austrian 
Succession, border warfare was resumed in America. 
The French first attacked posts in Nova Scotia. Then 
the English colonial forces in 1745, aided by a British 
fleet under Commodore Warren, attacked the strongly 
fortified base of Louisburg, on Cape Breton Island. The 
troops were commanded by William Pepperell, the popu- 
lar merchant of Kittery, and when the project was com- 
pleted successfully, further plans were made for an in- 
vasion of Canada by way of Champlain the next year. 
Governor Shirley of Massachusetts proposed to Governor 
Clinton of New York that the colonial forces should be 
used to capture Crown Point, "Fort Frederick." Fifteen 
hundred Massachusetts troops started for the rendezvous, 
but were recalled to strengthen Boston against any pos- 
sible sea attack of the French. 

Governor Clinton could not obtain from the New York 
Assembly a grant of money and supplies to organize an 
expedition against Crown Point. He and the Assembly 
were in one of their periodic and bitter controversies 
over the limits of authority and perogatives of the 
crown, as represented by the governor. The Assembly 
used its power of voting money, or even the governor's 
salary, in the keen partisan contest felt throughout the 
province, and the same contest was being waged in other 

45 



colonies, creating sentiment which with other causes 
eventually grew to a desire for independence. 

RAID ON SARATOGA. 

There was a wooden fort at the little Dutch settle- 
ment of Saratoga, farthest northern outpost of the col- 
ony, but in such poor condition that it was abandoned 
by the small force of regulars. Thereupon 500 French 
and Indians, under the veteran woodsman Marin, raided 
the place and burned all the buildings, taking 100 prison- 
ers, on November 28th, 1745. All the northern frontier 
of New York and New England felt the sting of large 
or small raiding parties. Crown Point was the head- 
quarters of the band which in 1746 raided and captured 
Fort Massachusetts, western outpost of that colony. The 
raiders came south by way of Champlain, Woods Creek, 
and then up the Hoosac River, returning the same way 
and burning numerous buildings of Dutch and English 
settlers. 

William Johnson, the young relative of Admiral War- 
ren, was at that time agent of the latter's land grants 
along the Mohawk, and very popular with the Iroquois. 
Governor Clinton made him Indian commissioner of the 
province, and before long his home at Fort Johnson on 
the Mohawk River was headquarters for Iroquois chiefs 
of all the nations whenever it was necessary to hold a 
council in the English interests. Governor Clinton sent 
an expedition of Iroquois against an outpost of the 
French on an island in Lake George in 1747, but without 
results. 

46 



In July of 1748 news reached the colonies of suspen- 
sion of hostilities in Europe, and this soon brought a 
suspension of border raids in America. At the peace 
settlement of Aix-la-Chapelle the strong post of Louis- 
burg on Cape Breton Island, captured by New England 
forces, was returned to France, but the northern and 
western boundary lines of New York were not settled. 
French hunters and traders were settled along the Cham- 
plain shores, with a few clearings in the vast expenses 
of forests. The rivalry for trade and influence with the 
western lakes Indians continued as before. 

Abbe Piquet established his Indian mission settle- 
ment at the mouth of the Oswegatchie on the St. Law- 
rence river (Ogdensburgh) in 1749, but a band of hostile 
Mohawks burned the place in October, and then it was 
rebuilt with storehouses, fortified stockades, trading sta- 
tion, and other buildings. Within two years there were 
gathered here 1,000 or 1,500 Iroquois attached to the 
French, principally Onondagas, with some of the other 
nations. Besides fur trapping the Indians were engaged 
in hunting the woods for wild ginseng, the root esteemed 
by the Chinese for supposed medicinal properties. New 
England and Canadian sea traders had lately developed 
a considerable trade with the distant Orient in this drug. 
At this time the Iroquois began to leave their ancient 
"Long House" settlements and wandered far and wide 
in small bands and families, throughout the Adirondacks 
and southwest along the Ohio. In the latter region there 
was great rivalry for trade, resulting in the building of 
Fort Duquesne by the French at the present site of Pitts- 
burgh in 1754. 

47 



COLONIAL CONGRESS AT ALBANY. 

In this same year the Congress of American colonial 
representatives was held at Albany to make treaties of 
peace and friendship with the Iroquois. The Congress 
also considered Benjamin Franklin's plan of union for 
better defense of all the colonies against aggressions of 
the French and Indians in the west. Encroachments of 
settlers on Mohawk lands and injustice from traders and 
commissioners who were also traders had alienated the 
friendship of the Iroquois, and their chief Hendrick led 
a deputation to New York in protest. William Johnson's 
work at Onondaga and at his own home soothed the in- 
dignant Indians. 

NORTHERN BORDER IN DANGER. 

George Washington's military encounter with the 
small French scouting party in western Pennsylvania in 
May of 1754, was the spark that soon started a great war 
in Europe. The commissioners appointed by England 
and France under the treaty following the late war had 
not yet settled the northern and western boundary ques- 
tion. Soon hostile war parties began to raid the outly- 
ing settlements of New England and New York. Both 
English and French reinforcements were sent to Amer- 
ica, and first hostilities opened with a sea encounter off 
the coast of New Foundland. This was the real begin- 
ning of the "Seven Years' War" as it was known in Eu- 
rope, or the last "French and Indian" war in America. 

Early in 1755 plans were made by Governor Shirley 
of Massachusetts, chief of the colonial forces, for the 
capture of Crown Point. He also expected to capture 

48 



Niagara; fortify the portage of the Kennebec-Chaudiere 
in north Maine, and then win all the western territory. 

Provincial militia from New England, New York and 
New Jersey, under Johnson, now a militia colonel, were 
to capture Crown Point. He had been made sole super- 
intendent of Indian affairs, and was able to prevent an 
outbreak of the Iroquois, even securing the aid of some 
300 for his military expedition, which gathered at the 
southern end of Lake St. Sacrament (Lake George) in 
September of 1755. 

The Marquis de Vaudrieul, new governor of Canada, 
a native of the northern province, sent Baron Dieskau 
with 3,500 men, regulars, Canadians and Indians, in the 
spring of 1755 to Lake Champlain to garrison Crown 
Point and possibly attack Albany. The defeat of Gen- 
eral Braddock at Fort Dequesne in July of 1755 had 
brought many of the wavering red warriors to the side 
of the French. 

JOHNSON NAMES LAKE GEORGE. 

In July, Colonel Johnson's force of 3,000 men had 
gathered at Albany. Among them were Ephriam Wil- 
liams, Israel Putnam, John Stark, Seth Pomeroy and oth- 
er notables active in previous wars or to become famous 
in the later Revolution. In August Johnson built Fort 
Lyman, later called Fort Edwards, at the great carrying 
place from the Hudson river to Woods Creek, and also 
to Lake George. It was decided to reach Lake Cham- 
plain by way of Lake George (or Lake St. Sacrement as 
it was still called), and the first wagon road was then 
cut through the woods to the southern end of the lake. 

49 



Johnson wrote to the British Lords of Trade: "I have 
given the name of Lake George, not only in honor of his 
Majesty, but to ascertain his undoubted dominion here." 
Ground was cleared for a camp between the marsh on the 
west and the higher ground to the east where Fort 
George was later constructed. 

BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE. 

An advance post of Baron Dieskau's forces was sta- 
tioned at "Carillon" or Ticonderoga, commanding the 
water passages from both Lake George and Woods Creek. 
With about 1,700 of his mixed forces General Dieskau 
advanced on the 4th of September, by way of Woods 
Creek and South Bay, thence to the wagon road from 
Johnson's camp to Fort Edwards. Here he ambushed 
and defeated a force sent out by Johnson to intercept 
the French, the action taking place between French 
mountain and West mountain. Chief Hendrick of the 
Mohawks, who had protested against the small numbers 
of the expedition, and then joined the advance, was killed 
in the first volleys of the action. The fugitives were 
driven back to Johnson's camp, where a barricade of 
wagons and tree trunks was hastily thrown together. 
The Baron attacked this camp impetuously with his vet- 
erans, but was steadily repulsed. Gradually Johnson's 
colonials and Indians took encouragement from the suc- 
cess of their stand, then began to advance upon the 
French, and soon dispersed the enemy through the woods. 
General Dieskau was severely wounded and captured. A 
party of Canadians and Indians in the woods were sur- 
prised and defeated at the scene of the morning's combat 
by a scouting party sent out from Fort Edwards. The 

5Q 



dead bodies were thrown into the ''Bloody Pool," as it is 
still called. 

The battle monument at Lake George commemorates 
the incident of Chief Hendrick's protest over the small 
number of men Johnson had proposed to send out when 
his scouts reported the proximity of French forces. 
Hendrick said that there were too many to be killed, and 
too few to fight, illustrating his argument by asking 
Johnson to break one twig or arrow, and then offering 
several to be broken together. 

Reenforcements arrived to aid Johnson, but no at- 
tempt was made to advance on Crown Point. In Novem- 
ber 3,000 men returned to their homes for the winter, 
leaving a garrison of about 500 men at the new fort, 
named William Henry by Johnson in honor of a grandson 
of the King. Johnson also named his fort on the Hudson 
Fort Edwards after another grandson. As a reward for 
his military activity and influence with the Iroquois, 
Johnson was made a baronet and received a military 
commission direct from the Crown. 

In the next May, 1756, England declared formal war 
after open conflict on land and sea of a year, and France 
followed with a similar declaration in June. In the same 
month General Montcalm arrived in Canada to take mili- 
tary command, supported by additional regulars from 
France, in all 3,000 including Dieskau's. There were at 
that time from 13,000 to 15,000 militia in Canada, all the 
able bodied males above 15 years of age. The population 
was estimated at 50,000 to 60,000. In the British col- 
onies there were 1,600,00, of whom 400,000 were negroes. 

51 



TICONDEROGA FORTIFIED, 

In the winter of 1755-56 the Canadian engineer, Lot- 
biniere, had strengthened Ticonderoga so as to make it 
a considerable fortified post. 

In March, Lieut, de Lery, a Canadian militia officer, 
led a raiding party from Oswegatchie through the 
woods to the portage from the upper Mohawk to Oneida 
Lake, near the present city of Rome, where Fort Bull 
was captured and supplies burned. 

In the spring of 1756 the French battalions of La 
Reine, Languedoc and Royal Roussillons were sent to gar- 
rison Ticonderoga, and in June General Montcalm and the 
engineer, Levis, arrived at the fort. They found it a 
square with four bastions, bomb proof, stone barracks, 
and a ditch partly excavated from solid rock. This was 
the old fort, on the crown of the promontory, not the 
later one built by the English and whose remains are 
still visible. 

The English colonial troops, with a few regulars, un- 
der command of Colonel John Winslow, assembled along 
the Hudson above Albany, at Fort Edwards and at Fort 
William Henry at Lake George, where the woods had 
been cut down for a mile around the works. The Earl 
of Loudon had been sent out from England as command- 
er in chief of all operations, to supercede Governor Shir- 
ley of Massachusetts. 

ROGER'S RANGERS. 

Many scouting parties were sent out by both sides. 
Captain Robert Rogers of New Hampshire, partisan chief 

52 



and skilled forest ranger, began to gather fame for his 
venturesome exploits along the shores of Lake Champlain 
and down the Richelieu, where he captured or destroyed 
supplies, and brought in prisoners from whom much in- 
formation was obtained. 

In August the English fort at Oswego on Lake On- 
tario was captured by Montcalm with three battalions of 
regulars, aided by Canadians and Indians. This brought 
consternation to the English colonists, and apprehension 
of further raids from the Champlain district, where their 
forces were standing on the defensive. Montcalm later 
appeared at Ticonderoga with his regulars from Ontario, 
by way of the St. Lawrence and Montreal. 

The colonial troops were ill-disciplined, unprepared, 
and assembled under a loose confederation. The Cana- 
dians were under the military rule of an autocratic gov- 
ernment, and more efficient. As Parkman says: "Is was 
a compact military absolutism confronting a heterogen- 
eous group of industrial democracies, where the force 
of numbers was neutralized by diffusion and incoher- 
ence." 

In March of 1757 a French force of some 1,600 made 
at attack across the ice-bound lake on Fort William 
Henry, burning storehouses, shops, whaleboats and 
sloops, but the garrison of 350 regulars and militia under 
Major Eyre successfully defended the fort itself. 

In July, French regulars, Canadians and Indians re- 
enforced the garrison at Ticonderoga under command of 
General Montcalm. They built a camp and saw mill on 
the outlet of Lake George, at the falls or end of the rapid. 

53 



about two miles above the entrance into Lake Champlain. 
The Chevalier de Levis, commander at this camp, cut a 
road through the woods southerly about one and a half 
miles to the head of the rapids, with another fortified 
camp about a mile from the foot of Lake George. 

CAPTURE OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 

In the latter part of the month the French started 
their advance on Fort William Henry, through the woods 
on the north side of Lake George along an old Mohawk 
trail to Ganouskie bay, later named Northwest Bay, and 
from thence to the southern end of Lake George on the 
western side. The force numbered 7,600 men, of whom 
1,600 were Indians. Considerable artillery was carried 
up the lake in batteau, and landed in Artillery Cove, 
northwest of the site of Fort William Henry. Montcalm 
made his base of operations nearby, at the present site 
of the northern part of Lake George village. South and 
east of the fort were placed camps of Levis and Boula- 
maque, with their Canadians and Indians to guard the 
approach from Fort Edwards. Montcalm's trenches and 
artillery emplacements were gradually extended eastward 
toward Fort William Henry, eventually reaching the gar- 
den maintained by the garrison, about the site of the 
present hotel. 

Lieut. Col. Monro, the veteran Scotch commander at 
Fort William Henry, had received reenforcements of a 
few hundred men from General Webb at Fort Edwards 
on the Hudson, raising the number of defenders to 2,200. 
They were deficient in artillery, and scourged with 
smallpox, a disease which seemed to cause more loss in all 
those early campaigns than the extensive armed conflicts 

54 



themselves. The Earl of Loudon had stripped the north- 
ern colonies of available military forces for his ill-fated 
expedition to Halifax, from which he hoped to capture 
Louisburg, a hope shattered by storms and dilatoriness. 

After a few days of skirmishing and heavy artillery 
fire the depleted garrison surrendered, with honors of 
war, and a promise to be marched safely to Fort Ed- 
wards. Canadian Indians broke in upon the ranks of 
the prisoners, as well as the sick and wounded in their 
tents, massacred many, stole clothing and personal arti- 
cles, and carried about 200 into capitivity to Montreal, 
where they were ransomed by the French. Hundreds 
were forced to flee through the woods for safety, later 
gaining the shelter of Fort Edwards. 

Montcalm returned to Ticonderoga, August 16th, af- 
ter leveling and burning the fort and wooden works 
of the adjacent entrenched camp to the east. 

One more raid of the French closed the warfare for 
the year, when about 300 Canadians and Indians burned 
the settlement at "German Flats," on the western Mo- 
hawk, where refugees from the war-torn Palatinate of 
the German Rhine had been settled by Queen Anne of 
England a generation earlier. 

In March of 1758 occurred the defeat of the famous 
ranger, Captain Rogers, when he was intercepted by a 
superior force of French and Indians near the mountain 
later named Rogers Rock, over which he escaped in the 
night after most of his force had been killed or captured 
in the bitterly contested battle in the woods to the north. 

55 



The tide of victory began to turn in favor of the 
British in 1758 when Pitt, the great prime minister, re- 
called Loudon and appointed General Abercrombie as his 
successor, sending to America reenforcements of regu- 
lars and a staff of brilliant officers of achievement, in- 
cluding Wolfe, Howe and Amherst. In July the forces 
of Amherst captured Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, 
the strongest fortress of the French in America. 

BATTLE OF TICONDEROGA. 

In June General Abercrombie with a force of 6,000 
British regulars and 9,000 colonial militia gathered at 
the head of Lake George in preparation for an attack on 
Ticonderoga, where Montcalm was again in command. 
The troops had been trained in border warfare and gen- 
eral military efficiency by Lord Howe, the best liked and 
most promising officer under Abercrombie. 

On the 5th of July the great flotilla left the lower end 
of the lake. Next day the troops landed at the head of 
the outlet so as to march through the woods on the west- 
ern and northern side, around to Ticonderoga. In the 
confusion of the forest they encountered an advance 
force of the French, and in the short skirmish Lord Howe 
was killed, near "Trout Brook," north of Rogers Rock, at 
the brook's junction with the outlet. The death of Lord 
Howe was an irreparable loss to the expedition, for his 
popularity, enthusiasm and ability were the inspiration 
of the entire force. The troops returned to Lake George, 
and from thence marched toward Ticonderoga by way of 
the "portage" cut through the woods on the eastern side 
by Levis. They established the main camp at the "Saw 

56 



Mill," at the foot of the rapids, where Montcalm's camp 
had been. 

The French, after determining to fall back on Ticon- 
deroga, had hastily built a log stockade across the higher 
ridge west of the fort, with a broad expanse of fallen 
trees in front, the limbs and twigs sharpened and pointed 
outward toward the enemy. This the English tried to 
storm and capture on July 8th with musketry alone, but 
were several times repused. Thirty-six hundred men 
were in the fortification, including seven battalions of 
regulars, among them veterans who had fought on On- 
tario two summers before. Canadians and Indians 
guarded the sloping sides of the ridge, or skirmished 
through the woods along the line of advance of the Eng- 
lish. The later had made no provision for sites for their 
artillery, and suffered severely in their attempts to storm 
the barricade, the attack being pushed gallantly by the 
regulars, especially the Scotch Highlanders, who were a 
new element in American warfare. 

Sir William Johnson with a considerable number of 
Mohawks accompanied Abercrombie's forces, but did lit- 
tle more than act as spectators. The Iroquois were still 
inclined to be neutral in view of past disasters to the 
English cause. 

In the series of attacks Abercrombie's forces lost 1,- 
950 men, and the French 375. The English army re- 
treated to the camp at the Falls, and thence in precipitate 
flight to Fort William Henry and the entrenched camp 
nearby, urged on by the whoops and wierd cries of the 
Canadian Indians ranging the woods and shores of the 

57 



lake. Abercrombie hastened all the sick and wounded 
south to Fort Edwards and Albany, soon following in 
person with a large portion of his troops. His men 
named him "General Nabbycrombie" for his ungallant 
action. 

A new camp was constructed on the site of the old 
fortified camp, from which Captain Rogers and his col- 
onial rangers operated in the vicinity of French forces 
toward the north. In turn the French and Indians har- 
rassed English communications with Fort Edwards and 
Albany. 

In August Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario (Kings- 
ton), was captured by colonial forces under Colonel 
Bradstreet, operating from the old site of fortifications 
at Oswego. But few French were captured, as their for- 
ces were busy elsewhere. Nine vessels and a great 
amount of stores and equipment were taken, and this vic- 
tory, with a judicious distribution of presents, helped to 
gain the allegiance of the wavering Iroquois, who had 
given but little aid so far in the war. 

In October, General Amherst with five regiments of 
regulars from Louisburg joined Abercrombie at Lake 
George, but the season was considered too far advanced 
to renew operations against Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point. Both French and English commanders, with the 
larger number of their troops, returned to their respec- 
tive centers for the winter. 

In November of 1758 Fort Duquesne on the Ohio was 
occupied by the forces of General Forbes. This left Ti- 

58 



conderoga and Crown Point as the center and bulwark of 
French outposts in North America. 

BRITISH ADVANCE. 

General Amherst took command of operations the next 
year, and in June of 1756 he assembled about 11,000 
men, half British regulars and half colonial regiments, 
at Lake George as part of the plan to reduce all of Can- 
ada. General Wolf's sea expedition from England 
against Quebec had arrived before that stronghold in 
June also. 

Amherst began the construction of a fort on the old 
site of the entrenched camp near Fort William Henry, 
but it was not completed. Ruins of this were in later 
times shown to tourists as Fort George. On July 21 Am- 
herst's forces embarked for Ticonderoga, passing the out- 
let of Lake George by the old portage, and securing fa- 
vorable positions for artillery fire on the fortifications. 
On the 23rd Boulamaque, French commander, retreated 
northward, leaving 400 men in the garrison, and on the 
26th these men abandoned the fort after blowing up part 
of it. The French soon abandoned Crown Point, retreat- 
ing to Isle-aux-Noix, in the Richelieu a short distance 
below Champlain, where it had been determined to make 
the final stand. 

Many of Amherst's forces were set to rebuilding 
Crown Point on an extensive scale, exploring the adja- 
cent woods and waters in all directions, and also building 
the first road across Vermont to Charlestown on the 
Connecticut. The saw mill at the "Falls" on the outlet 
of Lake George was kept busy making planks for Crown 

59 



Point and for several vessels destined to combat the four 
French craft on northern Champlain. It was late au- 
tumn before the craft were completed, and then occurred 
the first naval battle on Lake Champlain. Captain Lor- 
ing sailed northward with his little fleet, encountered the 
French off Valcour Island, drove two of the craft ashore, 
and the other two retreated down the Richelieu. Am- 
herst made one attempt to advance on Isle-aux-Noix. His 
forces were buffeted by headwinds, driven into Ligonier 
Bay on the west side of the lake, and the expedition was 
then abandoned. 

Niagara had fallen to the English in July of 1759, 
and news reached the colonies two months later that 
Quebec had been captured by Wolfe's assaulting forces in 
September, when both gallant commanders, Montcalm and 
Wolfe, were killed. 

THE LAST CAMPAIGN. 

Plans were completed and operations set under way 
early in 1760 for the final reductions of French strong- 
holds in Canada. General Amherst was to lead the main 
body from Oswego down the St. Lawrence to Montreal, 
Brigadier Haviland was given the task of advancing from 
Champlain, while General Murray, commander at Quebec, 
was assigned to move up the St. Lawrence to form a 
junction with the other forces about Montreal. Havi- 
land's force of 3,400 regulars, colonials and Indians em- 
barked at Crown Point in August, proceeding north on 
Champlain to the fortified Isle-aux-Noix in the Richelieu. 
Bougainville's force of 1,700 abandoned this place and fell 
back on St. John, 12 miles down the Richelieu, where 1,- 
200 more men were stationed. When Haviland's force 

GO 



advanced the French abandoned St. John and Chambly, 
as their militia forces were fast returning to their homes, 
owing to Murray's tactics in bringing pressure to bear 
on the rural population along the St. Lawrence outside of 
Montreal. 

When the three forces of the English united success- 
fully at Montreal in early September, Governor Vaudreuil 
was compelled to make formal surrender to General Am- 
herst of all the Canadian dominions claimed by France. 
While this closed warfare in America, it was not until the 
treaty of Paris in 1763 that Canada became officially a 
part of the British Empire, including all the lands of 
North America east of the Mississippi. 

By royal proclamation Quebec was set up as a separ- 
ate province, with its southern boundary, which was to 
be the northern boundary of the Province of New York, 
established at the 45th parallel, eastward from the St. 
Lawrence river to the highlands which separate "the 
rivers that empty themselves into the said St. Lawrence 
from those which fall into the sea." This was the same 
boundary later settled upon by treaty after the American 
Revolution, though numerous surveys and conferences 
were necessary to establish the line along the Maine high- 
lands and to the sea. 

Throughout the Adirondack region Indian hunters 
and white trappers resumed their old work of gathering 
furs, free from terror of warring bands. New fur com- 
panies were organized in the American colonies as well 
as in Canada, and while rivalry was keen, there was no 
longer opportunity to sway the savage nations from one 

61 



side to another along the northern border. On the west- 
ern Great Lakes there continued to be trouble and bitter 
rivalry for years. 

A great conference of Iroquois chiefs and warriors 
was held at Sir William Johnson's home in September of 
1763 to settle many points of dispute and to pacify some 
of the western Indians. In his report to the Lords of 
Trade Johnson outlined the claims of the Iroquois as 
original proprietors of these lands: "South of Lake On- 
tario to the great Ridge of the Blew Mountains, with all 
the western part of the province of New York towards 
Hudson's River, west of the Caats Kill, thence to Lake 
Champlain, and from Reghioghne a Rock at the East side 
of said lake to Oswegatche or La Gattell on the River St. 
Lawrence (having long since ceded their claims North of 
said line in favor of the Canada Indians as Hunting 
ground), thence up the River St. Lawrence and along the 
south side of Lake Ontario to Niagara." The Iroquois 
also claimed the vast expanse of territory from western 
Pennsylvania along the Ohio to the Mississippi, north to 
the Great Lakes and Ottawa River, and down to Montre- 
al, as theirs by right of conquest. 

THE NAME "ADIRONDACK." 

The name "Adirondack" as applied to the mountains, 
and later the entire wooded region of lakes and streams, 
has always been associated with Colden's early history of 
the Five Nations. He always designated the Algonquins 
of the lower St. Lawrence as "Adirondacks," and told the 
story of the ancient feud between these people and the 
Iroquois, arising from the jealousy of the young Algon- 
quin warriors over the success of Iroquois companions 

62 



in a joint hunting expedition. The young Iroquois were 
murdered in their sleep, and soon hostilities began be- 
tween the two peoples. Colden repeated the version of 
his time, that the Iroquois were driven south to central 
New York, but eventally grew strong and totally annihi- 
lated the Adirondacks. The name is of Iroquois origin, 
meaning "bark eaters," a term of derision for their 
northern enemies, who lived by hunting alone and as a 
result were often driven to eating buds and inner bark of 
trees in winter, many starving to death in severe seasons. 

The northern part of this region was always consid- 
ered hunting ground for the Canadian Indians, and was 
recognized as such in the Iroquois treaty mentioned by 
William Johnson. But it was not until 1842 that Prof. 
Ebenezer Emmons, State Geologist, called the eastern 
mountains the "Adirondacks," the name eventually 
spreading to the entire region. Previous to that time 
the mountains had been called "Corlears" mountains, 
"Peruvian" mountains, "Macombs" mountains and 
"Brown's" mountains, following the land purchases made 
by the latter two men in the early days of the Republic. 
The great wooded area was known down to recent times 
as the "Big Woods" and the "North Woods," and the 
terms are still used to a small extent. "Couch-saeh-ra-ge" 
the Iroquois designated the great wilderness area, mean- 
ing beaver hunting grounds. 

OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 

From 1763 until the outbreak of the Revolution the 
rude settlements and clearings of farmers pushed north- 
ward along the Hudson and in Vermont and New Hamp- 
shire, while many small trading posts were located along 

63 



the eastern Adirondack country. But small garrisons, 
little more than care takers, were left at Crown Point, 
Ticonderoga and Fort George. Extensive land grants 
were made along the shores of southern and eastern 
Champlain. 

The first adventure in hostilities was when news 
reached the northern settlements of the fighting around 
Boston, and then Ethan Allen and his famous Green 
Mountain Boys on May 10th, 1775, crossed over Lake 
Champlain to capture Ticonderoga. The surprised offi- 
cer in command, when summoned to surrender, and when 
he had inquired by what authority that summons was is- 
sued, was given that reply so often quoted in school his- 
tories: "The Continental Congress and the Great Jeho- 
vah." The powder and guns were soon removed from the 
fortification, and were welcome additions to the supplies 
of the Continental militia organized for the siege of Bos- 
ton, and throughout the colonies. 

SUPPLIES FOR CONTINENTAL MILITIA. 

On the day after Ticonderoga was given up, Seth 
Warner and part of the Green Mountain Boys surprised 
Crown Point's small garrison of a dozen men, and it was 
surrendered with all its stores of powder, guns and nu- 
merous supplies. Fort George on Lake George was also 
captured from its caretakers on May 16th by Colonel 
Romans, a member of Ethan Allen's force, with a small 
number of volunteers recruited at Fort Edwards three or 
four days previous to the capture. Its supplies were also 
soon available to the Continental militia, and enabled 
them to offer effective resistance to the British during 
the first year of the war. 

64 



THE AMERICAN INVASION OF CANADA. 

In the summer of 1775 plans were made by the Amer- 
ican leaders for a descent upon Montreal and Quebec by 
the old Champlain-Richelieu route. General Philip Schuy- 
ler was assigned the task of organizing the forces at 
Crown Point, and General Richard Montgomery was 
given command when the advance was started. His ex- 
pedition was encamped for a while on Isle-La-Motte. In 
mid-October the fort at Chambly was captured, and then 
the advancing Continentals laid siege to Fort Johnson. 
A relief force of British under General Carleton, the Eng- 
lish governor of Quebec province, was defeated by Seth 
Warner and a force of the Green Mountain Rangers. A 
fort was built by Warner at the mouth of the Richelieu 
to block any further attempt at relief of Fort Johnson, 
which surrendered November 3rd to General Montgom- 
ery. The latter's forces then advanced to Montreal, 
which surrendered November 13th, and then Montgom- 
ery's men followed the St. Lawrence down to Quebec, 
where General Benedict Arnold's forces were gathered 
after their adventuresome journey north through Maine 
by the old Kennebec-Chaudiere water and portage trail. 

After General Montgomery was killed on February 
13th, 1776, in the attempt to capture the stronghold of 
Quebec, the siege of that place was continued by General 
Arnold through the winter. The committee of the Con- 
tinental Congress, consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Sam- 
uel Chase and Charles Carroll, appointed to investigate 
the condition of American troops in Canada, went north 
by way of Lake Champlain in April of 1776. In June the 
American forces retreated up the Richelieu to Champlain, 

65 



reaching Crown Point early in July. The British reoc- 
cupied their posts on the Richelieu and at the north end 
of Champlain, building ships to give battle to the revolu- 
tionary craft. 

ENCOUNTERS ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN 

On October 11th the American fleet, under command 
of Arnold, met the British fleet in the action known as 
the Battle of Valcour Island. The Royal Savage, Arn- 
old's ship, entered action first and became separated 
from the other American boats, being unable on account 
of the wind to re-enter the battle. Arnold was forced to 
scuttle the boat oft' the shore of the island, and later in 
the night the other American boats escaped south. The 
old hulk of the Royal Savage has been a sight of interest 
to tourists for generations. On October 13th Captain 
Pringle's British fleet overtook the American craft oft 
the Vermont shore, at Arnold's Bay, four miles south of 
Westport. The American boats were forced to run 
ashore, where Arnold and his men, after setting the hulls 
aflame, walked through the woods south to Crown Point. 

CONTEST FOR INDIAN AID. 

So far in the war there had been but little activity 
along the northern border by the old masters of this 
territory, the Iroquois Indians. The English agents 
from Canada and the "Loyalist" element among the set- 
tlers endeavored to obtain their support, while the Con- 
tinental generals and officials tried to gain at least the 
neutrality of the redskins, if not active aid. Sir William 
Johnson, most influential friend of the Iroquois, had died 
at his home at Johnstown in July of 1774. He was suc- 

66 



ceeded by his nephew and son-in-law, Colonel Sir Guy 
Johnson. In 1775 the latter held councils at Fort Stan- 
wix and Oswego to gain Indian support. His secretary 
and influential aid was Joseph Brant, brother of Molly 
Brant, the late Commissioner's Mohawk Indian wife. 
Some of the Iroquois and northern Indians were enlisted 
at Montreal, while the agents of the revolting colonies 
secured the neutrality and later considerable support 
from the Iroquois settled at Caughnawaga. Other coun- 
cils held by Americans at Albany and German Flats to 
secure neturality produced little results. 

In May of 1776 Sir John Johnson, son and heir of 
Sir William Johnson, fled from his home at Johnstown 
to Canada with a few Indian guides and about 250 of the 
"Loyalists" among his servants or those who had set- 
tled on nearby lands. They went by way of the west- 
ern Adirondack woods route through the chain of central 
lakes to the Oswegatchie and St. Lawrence. In the bat- 
tle of the Cedars in May of 1776 the Mohawks alone 
fought against the colonists. The Continental Congress 
passed a resolution giving 12 blank commissions to prom- 
inent Indians, and other rewards for the capture of Brit- 
ish officers and privates. General Schuyler and some oth- 
er leaders of the Revolution opposed using the Indians. 
Colonel Daniel Claus, of Johnson's family, was made 
British commissioner of the Indians recruited in Canada 
for the war, whose depredations under Joseph Brant 
along the northern and western frontier were felt se- 
verely until General Sullivan made his memorable and 
devastating punative raid through the Iroquois country 
of western New York in 1779. 

67 



BURGOYNE'S INVASION. 

The plan of the English to reduce New York by three 
expeditions was put into effect in 1777. Burgoyne was 
to advance by way of the Richelieu and Lake Champlain 
to Albany, General Clinton's forces were to advance up 
the Hudson from New York, while Lieut. Col. St. Ledger 
with Colonel Claus and his Indians were to gather at 
Carleton Island on the St. Lawrence and at Oswego for 
an advance to Albany by the Mohawk route. 

General Burgoyne's forces advanced south on Cham- 
plain in June to Ticonderoga, and laid siege to the fort, 
mounting a strong battery on Sugar Loaf or Mount De- 
fiance. General St. Clair, American commander, was 
forced to evacuate the fort and the strong entrenchments 
on Mount Independence on the opposite Vermont shore 
on July 6th. Part of his forces retreated south through 
the narrow reaches of the lake to Skenesboro, now White- 
hall, pursued by the British fleet, which had broken the 
great boom of logs and iron links stretched across from 
Ticonderoga to the Vermont entrenchments. Then Bur- 
goyne continued his advance south, toward Fort Edward, 
by way of Woods Creek rather than by way of Lake 
George, the better route. In doing this he lost time that 
had an important influence in subsequent actions. On 
July 8th an engagement was fought with part of the 
American rearguard at Hubbardstown. The British 
continued their advance. Col. Brown and Col. Warren 
of the American forces tried to capture some of the Brit- 
ish supplies stored on Diamond Island in Lake George 
on July 24th, but were defeated and compelled to run 
their boats ashore and burn them on the eastern side 

68 



of the lake. 

The first battle of Saratoga, or the battle of Bemis 
Heights, was fought on September 19th, near the present 
site of Schuylerville, where Burgoyne attacked an en- 
trenched position of the Americans under General Gates 
with no decided results, but with the loss of several hun- 
dred men on each side. Friction between General Arnold 
and General Gates resulted in the former requesting and 
being given permission to return to Philadelphia, but his 
brother officers persuaded him to remain, believing his 
ability much superior to that of Gates. When Burgoyne 
resumed his advance and attacks, Arnold with Morgan 
and Poor on October 7th in a series of courageous charges 
broke up the British line and compelled a retreat. 

Burgoyne reorganized his forces at Schuylerville, but 
with all aid and supplies cut off was not able to advance 
or hold out. On October 17th he surrendered to General 
Gates, — one of the most important victories of the Revo- 
lution and far reaching in its effect upon American re- 
sistance and determination. St. Ledger with his ad- 
vancing whites and Indians was defeated at Fort Stan- 
wix, or Schuyler, and Oriskany, and forced to retreat to 
Oswego and the St. Lawrence. General Clinton was un- 
able to advance north from New York, so the ambitious 
plan of dividing the colonies was frustrated. 

RAIDS OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Some of the Mohawk Iroquois had accompanied the 
forces of Burgoyne, but were nearly all driven away b;, 
the harsh treatment of the British commissioner. In 
March of 1778 American officials held a council with Iro 

69 



quois chiefs and warriors at Johnstown. The Oneidas 
and Tuscaroras were generally friendly, and remained 
so during the war. General La Fayette was present as 
a representative of Washington's staff, to secure the forts 
at Cherry Valley and Schoharie. The raid on Cobleskill 
in May of 1778 was led by Joseph Brant, the Mohawk, 
and resulted in the killing of a number of settlers and 
the defeat of a small band of Continentals who came to 
the rescue. The massacres of Cherry Valley and Wyom- 
ing were directed by Major Butler and Brant, with sev- 
eral hundred Indians and a few British and Loyalist vol- 
unteers. Some of the Indian bands used the Adirondack 
region as a safe retreat from plundering and scalping 
expeditions, while others were maintained at Oswegatchie 
and Carleton on the St. Lawrence, or at Oswego or Buf- 
falo forts. After General Sullivan destroyed 40 of the 
western Iroquois villages and 200,000 bushels of their 
corn in the summer of 1779, the Iroquois felt that they 
were a broken people, and thenceforth relied almost en- 
tirely upon the British forces in Canada for food and 
clothing. 

The peace negotiations of 1782, followed by the form- 
al treaty of 1783, suspended fear of further raids along 
the northern boundary. Settlers and traders again drew 
northward, cutting farms out of the dense woods and 
building pioneer settlements. 

INDIAN LAND TREATIES. 

By a formal treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1784 the Iro- 
quois claims to lands in New York were outlined, and 
settlement made for those taken over at the time. The 
claims of the Oneidas were granted to a larger extent 

70 



than in the days when the Federation was united. Other 
nations, especially the Mohawks remaining in New York 
as well as those of Canada represented by delegates, suf- 
fered in their claims for extensive lands and compensa- 
tion. Marquis de La Fayette also attended this confer- 
ence with the chiefs of the old Federation. 

The Mohawk warriors and their families remained 
on the American side of Niagara for a while, and then 
General Haldimand, governor of Canada, made them an 
extensive grant on the Grand River in Ontario, where 
chiefs and warriors of all six nations still live and pre- 
serve many of their ancient laws and customs, including 
hereditary chieftanships. Joseph Brant went to Eng- 
land in 1785 and was able to secure compensation from 
the British government for losses of the Mohawks in the 
English service. The Mohawks in Canada gave formal 
release of their claims to northern New York in 1798. 

In the far northwest of the ancient " Adirondack" 
hunting grounds, along both sides of the international 
boundary line where it touches the St. Lawrence, are to 
be found today the St. Regis-Mohawks, descendants of the 
original owners of the Mohawk river territory and east- 
ern Adirondack region. This reservation was orginally 
settled, according to the best Indian traditions and rec- 
ords, in 1760 by the two Tarbell brothers and a Jesuit 
missionary Gordon, who led a number of Caughnawaga 
Mohawks from their settlement near Montreal. Under 
the land act of the New York Legislature in 1787, em- 
powering the land commissioners to sell all unappropri- 
ated lands, the vast sale of 3,800,000 acres of northern 
mountains and wilderness was made in 1791 to Alexander 

71 



Macomb, former fur trader of Detroit, and father of 
General Macomb of the war of 1812. Out of this pur- 
chase was excepted six miles square for the use of In- 
dians settled on the border, at the St. Lawrence river. 
By subsequent treaties and releases this land was cut 
down and other small reservations on the Salmon and 
Grass rivers were eliminated, the State paying compen- 
sation and a yearly indemnity. There are yet about 14,- 
000 acres on this St. Regis reservation, where Mohawk 
farmers still maintain their chieftanships. In April of 
1886 the general council of the Six Nations held at Cold 
Springs formally admitted the St. Regis Indians into the 
Federation in place of the ancient Iroquois Mohawks. It 
is interesting to note that today on the several Iroquois 
reservations in New York, Wisconsin and Canada there 
are as many Iroquois living as in the days of their great- 
est numbers and importance in border warfare, accord- 
ing to estimates of Rev. W. M. Beauchamp and other au- 
thorities on Iroquois history and customs. 

From the close of the Revolution to the outbreak of 
the war of 1812-14 the Lake George-Champlain country 
was settled rapidly by sturdy bands of pioneers, a large 
proportion of them being veterans of the Revolutionary 
armies or navy. Small towns and hamlets grew up along 
both New York and Vermont shores, where young farm- 
ers from the earlier New England and New York settle- 
ments sought the cheaper lands offered by large proprie- 
tors or land company grantees. On the north of the 
Adirondacks the clearings began to circle the great moun- 
tain barrier toward the western St. Lawrence valley, 
where New England farmers were largely pioneers in 
settlement. 

72 



WAR OF 1812-14. 

Soon after war was declared in June of 1812 defen- 
sive measures were taken along Champlain, to strengthen 
Crown Point, Plattsburgh, Burlington and other places 
where military supplies were available or raids might be 
expected from the British at the north end of the lake. 
In 1813 occurred the engagement between British gun- 
boats and the "Growler" and "Eagle," under command 
of Lieut. Smith, sent north by Lieut. Thomas McDonough 
to prevent raids on small craft. The British craft were 
pursued down the Richelieu to Isle-aux-Noix, but here 
fortune was reversed and the American ships were cap- 
tured by superior forces. The British renamed the boats 
"Finch" and "Chub," and they appeared in later action 
against the Americans. 



In 1814 a British expedition under Sir George Pre- 
vost, Governor-General of Canada, was formed to in- 
vade New York under the old plan of campaign adopted 
by Burgoyne. In August Brigadier General Macomb 
was at Plattsburg as commander of the American forces, 
with some 1,500 men available, a larger force of about 
4,000 having been ordered to Niagara to aid General Ja- 
cob Brown in his western operations. When news reached 
Macomb of the advance by the British across the 
border, the available militia and all volunteers from near- 
by counties and from Vermont were hastened to Platts- 
burg, where a strong position had been formed on the 
south side of the Saranac river, protected by the bay on 
the east and a ravine on the west. 

73 



BATTLE OF PLATTSBURG. 

About 2,500 men were available for resistance to Pre- 
vost's advancing regiments of 14,000 veterans. The lat- 
ter crossed the northern border and from the first to the 
sixth of September advanced south, meeting opposition 
from American skirmishers, including the volunteer corp 
of boys too young to enter the militia. Bridges were de- 
stroyed and obstruction placed in the roads. From Sep- 
tember 6th to the 11th Prevost brought up and placed 
in position considerable artillery for the attack on the 
American position, containing Forts Brown, Scott and 
Moreau, with blockhouses and well-placed batteries. Then 
several attempts were made by the British to cross the 
Saranac, under cover of a heavy fire of artillery and 
rockets, but all attempts were repulsed. On the 12th the 
entire British force began its retreat north to the Cana- 
dian territory, leaving the sick and wounded and quanti- 
ties of baggage and supplies. Many of the disgusted 
British veterans deserted and some 500 were brought in 
by the pursuing Americans. Prevost was ordered be- 
fore a court martial for his conduct, but died before trial. 

On the lake the American fleet under Commodore 
Macdonough fought an equally brilliant and decisive en- 
gagement. Early in the spring the flagship "Saratoga" 
had been constructed on the Vermont shore near Ver- 
gennes in just 40 days from the time the trees were felled 
in the forest. Macdonough's fleet was carefully an- 
chored in Plattsburg bay, with spring lines out to the 
anchors for warping into better firing position, and 
kedge anchors ready to run out when necessary. The 
fleet consisted of the Saratago, the brig Eagle, the schoon- 

74 



er Ticonderoga, the sloop Preble and ten gunboats or 
large galleys. 

MACDONOUGH'S VICTORY ON CHAMPLAIN. 

On the morning of September 11th, Captain George 
Downie, British fleet commander, sailed south from Ise- 
La Motte and into the bay with the flagship Confidence, 
the brig Linnet, the Chub, Finch and twelve large gal- 
leys. The armament of the two fleets was about even, 
while the British sailors numbered about 1,000 and the 
Americans 800. The American fleet was anchored south 
of the outlet of the Saranac, beyond range of the shore 
batteries, with the flagship's bow toward Cumberland 
head, the other boats being in line toward Crab Island. 
Commander Macdonough held devotional services in the 
early morning, and then prepared to receive the advanc- 
ing British fleet, sighting and firing the first gun on the 
Saratoga. The engagement lasted until both fleets were 
well splintered, and the result was a total defeat for the 
British, who lost to Macdonough a frigate, a brig and two 
sloops of war, as he reported to the secretary of the navy. 

Following the double victory on land and water Gen- 
eral Macomb and Commodore Macdonough were given 
many public receptions and testimonials in Plattsburg, 
Burlington, New York and other cities where the decisive 
results of this action were so keenly appreciated after 
all the bungling and inefficiency exhibited during the war 
elsewhere. This was the last invasion of American lands 
by hostile British forces. 

Following the treaty of Ghent, signed on December 
2nd, 1814, the tide of settlement and trade again swung 



north and west in the Adirondack country. As the set- 
tlements advanced, the mountains and woods became de- 
pleted as a source of profit for the great number of In- 
dian and white trappers, but gained in reputation as a 
healthful and inspiring resort for tourists, amateur 
hunters and summer campers. 

WHERE HEALTH AND RECREATION ABOUND. 

Today on nearly every lake shore will be found camps 
and hotels, cottages and tents, from the magnificently 
equipped hostleries of the larger resorts to the little 
"lean-to" of some adventure-loving summer visitor. The 
reputation of the Adirondack region has become inter- 
national, as perhaps the most distinctive natural feature 
of eastern North America. It draws visitors and health 
seekers from all parts of America and Europe. Its splen- 
did system of State roads, railroads and boat routes make 
an ideal combination for summer guests, who are at- 
tracted year after year by some charm of scenery or cli- 
mate, or opportunity for hunting or fishing. 

The general elevation of the region is about 2,000 feet, 
and it contains over 1,200 named lakes, rivers and 
streams. Five rather distinct mountain ranges traverse 
the eastern section, beginning north of the Mohawk and 
running northeasterly toward Champlain and the Cana- 
dian border. The great central group of mountain peaks 
is in the westernmost of these five ranges, the highest be- 
ing Mount Marcy, or Tahawus, its Indian name, 5,344 
feet. In the vicinity are the bold and picturesque heights 
of Mclntyre, Haystack, Whiteface, Seymour, Ampersand, 
Clinton, Saddle Back, Seward and others. Beyond the 

76 



central plateau of lakes and streams rise another group 
of lesser mountains and wooded hills in the west, forming 
the last barrier before the waters fall away toward the 
St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario. Throughout the entire 
region are found numerous specimens of northern trees, 
especially of the evergreen varieties. The Adirondack 
region is part of the Canadian Laurentian formation, the 
oldest known to geologists. To the botanist, the geolo- 
gist or the student and lover of birds and animals there 
is always offered a wide opportunity for observation and 
entertainment. The Adirondacks seem destined to be a 
perpetual storehouse of health, wealth and recreation for 
the people of the State and Nation. 




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